Colorful veggies offer a lot more than meets the eye
Turns out that Popeye (and your mom!) were right on the money about the importance of eating your spinach!
Bright green spinach and other colorful fruits and veggies don’t just add “eye appeal” to your dinner plate, but they also play a big role in keeping your vision sharp and clear.
And that’s especially true when it comes to preventing macular degeneration.
But where these bright-hued foods are concerned, researchers have now added yet another benefit to the list.
Because veggies like carrots aren’t just for your eyes only. They can help put the brakes on a condition that’s killing hundreds of thousands of seniors in the U.S. every year.
A source of ‘dis-inflammation’
Just last week I told you how drugmaker Novartis is pushing an old, risky med to treat hardening of the arteries that’s caused by chronic inflammation.
It turns out that that such ongoing inflammation can be the trigger point for a boatload of terrible diseases — ones such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and most especially heart disease. That’s going to be the big new selling point for this not-so-new drug Novartis is trying to repackage.
But here’s another way to fight chronic inflammation. And it doesn’t come along with vertigo, weight gain, nausea, vomiting, pneumonia, or a big risk of coming down with infections such as TB.
All you have to do is eat foods high in lutein!
Lutein, as you probably know, is the antioxidant you’ll hear about most often connected to eye health. It can help to filter out a certain amount of that short-wavelength UV light that over time can have a damaging effect on the retina, and it can protect your precious peepers from cataracts.
But apparently, this compound has a few more healthy “tricks” up its sleeve.
A team of scientists from Linkoping University in Sweden have just uncovered the role that lutein also plays in suppressing chronic inflammation — the kind, according to Professor Lena Jonasson, who led the study, that’s “associated with a poorer prognosis” for heart patients.
And chronic inflammation is something that remains in a considerable number of patients who have experienced a heart attack, she said, even after receiving “the best possible treatment” with drugs designed to unblock blood vessels and making lifestyle changes.
While previous studies had pointed to a link between carotenoid compounds like lutein and lower levels of inflammation in animals and healthy human volunteers, the Linkoping researchers wanted to see what effect, if any, they might have on heart disease sufferers.
What they found in analyzing close to 200 patients was that lutein can “suppress long-term inflammation in those with coronary artery disease.” They also discovered it can be absorbed and stored in the bloodstream by the cells of the immune system.
So, it makes your immune system stronger — unlike Big Pharma’s drug to fight inflammation, which basically tosses your immune function out the window.
Specifically, when the researchers tested the subjects for an inflammatory marker called interleukin-6, they discovered that the more lutein in the blood, the lower the levels. And when they isolated immune-system cells from the blood of heart patients and treated them with lutein, they also found that their inflammatory activity was reduced.
And the best part is: It’s not difficult at all to find plenty of lutein-rich foods.
Those with the highest amount include Popeye’s favorite, spinach — along with kale, carrots, broccoli, eggs, and those naturally colorful red and yellow peppers.
Lutein supplements (which will probably say that they are for eye health) are also very easy to find. HSI panel member Dr. Mark Stengler recommends taking 6 to 15 mg of lutein daily — and, of course, putting plenty of greens and veggies of other hues on your dinner plate as well.
Only instead of a plate, you might try thinking of it as a “dinner palette.”
“Vegetable coloring agent lutein may suppress inflammation” Linkoping University, July 5, 2017, ScienceDaily, sciencedaily.com
