Few people know that this very common vegetable reduces high blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease

We all know that a healthy diet rich in vegetables can protect us from even serious diseases. Living a long and healthy life is everyone’s dream. After the age of 50, many people start suffering from cardiovascular problems and keeping them under control is essential.

As we have already said in this article, for example, mango is able to protect us from high cholesterol and diabetes. Today, however, the editorial team wants to explain how a very simple vegetable can protect the health of our heart.

In fact, few people know that this very common vegetable reduces high blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease. Let’s find out together what vegetable we are talking about, what study it is and above all the results that emerged.

Few people know that this very common vegetable reduces high blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular disease

This is supported by a study published in 2015 in Clinical Nutrition Research. A team of scientists and researchers from the University of Toronto worked on this study.

Researchers focused on high-nitrate vegetables to show that they possess vessel protective properties.

The starting hypothesis saw as the protagonist a particular green leafy vegetable very rich in nitrates, namely spinach. They wanted to show that spinach consumption could affect arterial stiffness and, consequently, central and peripheral blood pressure.

I study

The researchers examined 27 subjects in healthy conditions. Some randomly selected people were asked to eat a high nitrate spinach soup. These subjects therefore consumed 845 milligrams of soup-derived nitrates daily.

The other subjects ate a low nitrate asparagus soup, about 0.6 milligrams of nitrates.

Test subjects followed this pattern for 7 days followed by a one week washout period. The editorial team explains that the washout period in a study refers to an interval in ongoing treatment.

The results

Starting from the assumption that a diet rich in fruit and vegetables reduces the risk of incurring cardiovascular problems, the study revealed some evidence.

The study shows that the consumption of spinach nitrates helps reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Specifically, consuming a high amount of nitrates reduced arterial stiffness and blood pressure. Scientists observed a consistent reduction in systolic blood pressure.

The parameters examined and on which variations such as arterial stiffness and blood and arterial pressure were observed confirm the initial hypothesis. Therefore, we can conclude by saying that spinach is able to reduce pressure and protect against the risk of cardiovascular disease.