Medicinal properties of fruit
Fruit benefits
All these components do not only help the body to be nourished, but they prevent the onset of many diseases, as it has been demonstrated in studies conducted in recent years.
The main diseases that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can prevent include the following:
- Obesity: Fruits generally have very few calories and lots of fiber. This allows the body to quench more easily without having to ingest other caloric foods. The regular intake of fruit is a good way to prevent obesity.
- Constipation: Fruit, because of its richness in fiber, facilitates the expulsion of feces from the intestine and prevents constipation or other intestinal diseases such as diverticulosis, the latter more common in older people.
- Heart Attacks: Fruits and vegetables prevent clots in arteries and thin the blood. It has been proved that regular intake of these foods reduced from 20 to 40% the chances of suffering a vascular problem.
- Hypertension: Regular consumption of fruit and vegetables, combined with a low fat diet, lowers blood pressure.
- Cancer: Recent studies have shown that fruit is rich in antioxidant compounds able to eliminate free radicals, particles which are responsible for the development of many degenerative diseases, including cancer.
It has been particularly shown that eating regularly fruits and vegetables prevents the development of many cancers, mainly lung and digestive ones (Stomach, esophagus, colon, rectum or mouth, mainly).
Fruits favor a good metabolism
In addition to providing vitamins and minerals to the body, fruits help to achieve the acid-base balance of the body, neutralizing excess acidity. Due to their content of potassium and magnesium salts, they favor the elimination of liquids and excess nitrogenous waste and chlorides. Thus they purify the body.
Due to their water content – between 80 and 90% of their weight – they are an ideal way to hydrate our body while providing enough energy in the form of simple carbohydrates (fructose, sucrose and glucose) that are highly assimilable by our body.
* Related information: dry food, dry food types, fleshy fruits
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