Tomatoes are packed with nutrients, nutrients that offer a lot of benefits to the body. Its nutritional content supports healthy skin, weight loss and heart health.
They are amongst the most famous vegetables. Other famous vegetables include, potatoes, lettuce and onions.
In this article, we are going to see how beneficial tomatoes are to the body system and also a few health risks that they have too.
Cancer
Tomatoes are a great source of vitamin C and several other antioxidants. These nutrients help fight free radicals, this free radicals have been known to cause cancer.
Beta-carotene which is abundant in tomatoes, are said to prevent tumor development in prostate cancer.
Lycopene also found in tomatoes, which gives it its red colour, fights prostate cancer too.
A study carried out amongst the japanese population shows that, consumption of beta-carotene reduces the risk of colon cancer.
Blood Pressure
Maintaining a low sodium intake helps to maintain healthful blood pressure. However, increasing potassium intake may just be as important due to its widening effects on the arteries.
High potassium and low sodium intake are also associated with a 20 percent reduced risk of dying from all causes.
Heart Health
A couple of components in tomatoes support the health of our hearts, they are, vitamin C, fibre, potassium etc. if we increase our intake of potassium, reducing our sodium intake, we reduce our chances of cardiovascular diseases.
Tomatoes also contain folate, which helps balance homocysteine levels. Homocysteine is gotten from broken down protein. It is said to increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Potassium does not only fight cardiovascular diseases, it also helps the muscles not to get out of shape, helps prevent bone mineral density and reducing the production of kidney stones.
Diabetes
Research shows that people with type 1 diabetes who consume fibre have lower blood sugar levels, while people with type 2 diabetes may have improved blood sugar, lipids and insulin levels.
Constipation
Tomatoes have a very high water content and fibre. This would help a lot in digestion and also aiding normal bowel movements. Tomatoes are a natural form of laxative.
Fibre makes our stool heavier and helps reduce constipation.
Eye Health
Lycopene, lutein and beta-carotene are powerful antioxidants that help protect the eyes against damage from light, the development of cataracts etc. Tomatoes are rich in these components.
Skin
The skin, nails, hair etc, need collagen to be healthy. Vitamin C is component that helps with the production of collagen in the body that protects our hair nails etc. without enough vitamin C in the body, our skin wrinkles and sags fast.
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