The health benefits of bananas are numerous and are worth knowing. Bananas are a great snack and are often an addition to any delicious breakfast. While many people eat them on a somewhat regular basis for their taste – but did you know that many attractive factors can benefit your health as well? Bananas are a healthy superfood, and they can help you to cope with and overcome a whole slew of ailments and illnesses. Bananas are easy to add as a side to a meal, and there are also plenty of recipes, that you can create daily to improve your health.
Health Benefits of Bananas – Excellent for bowel movements
If you’re someone who has issues with consistent bowel movements, constipation or diarrhea, then you need to make it a priority to start adding banana into your diet. Why is this? This is because banana carries the health benefit of a high fiber content, which is closely linked to making bowel movements more regular for those who are suffering from constipation.
The special ingredient, pectin
But what if too frequent bowel movements are the problem, and is causing diarrhea? Then bananas can also help with this ailment, by providing you with nutrients and a balance of electrolytes that are quickly depleted when you are suffering from diarrhea. Within the nutritional content of the banana, there is a fiber called pectin. This will benefit you if you ingest it by making bowel movements that would normally cause diarrhea to form usually in the digestive tract.
Healthy eye
Are you looking to maintain and protect your eyesight? Then you need to begin eating bananas regularly. When looking at records within the Archives of Ophthalmology has shown that if you’re an adult who aims to eat around 3 servings of fruit each day, then you will have a lowered risk of a condition called macular degeneration, which is the main reason why so many people lose their eyesight with age (read the research summary). So if you want to make sure that your entire life is spent taking in the breathtaking sights of the world, then make sure that you’re eating bananas and other delicious fruits.
From soft bananas to stronger bones
Did you know that the soft interior of a banana can provide you with the nutrients you need for strong and healthy bones? Many don’t know this, but banana contains excellent levels of fructooligosaccharides, which helps with healthy bacteria that will allow your body to absorb calcium better. This will help your body to have stronger bones due to these increased levels of absorbed calcium. Making sure that you include bananas into your diet will ensure excellent bone health for years to come.
Health Benefits of Bananas – Active chemicals and antioxidants
Everyone has health challenges to face, and conditions that they are predisposed to due to their environment or family history. If you’re worried about offsetting the incidence of cancer or kidney issues, then eating bananas regularly is paramount. If you make a solid effort to include bananas in your diet, you are actively cutting the risk of getting cancer by almost 40%. How does a banana help to fight off such a serious ailment? This is because bananas have large amounts of antioxidants and phenolic compounds, which fight off carcinogens that can infest the body and cause illness and cancer.
Health Benefits of Bananas – Potassium and lower blood pressure
Another ailment that can run in your family that will impact your health is high blood pressure. High blood pressure has many causes, and while you want to eliminate as many of these causes as possible, you also need to add bananas to your diet to ensure that your blood pressure levels will go down. In terms of the bananas’ nutritional content, it is very high in potassium, while also being low in sodium, and this creates a highly balanced ratio in a banana that will work to actively lower and balance out your blood pressure. The FDA even recently began allowing the banana to be toted as a product that will not only decrease your blood pressure but the risk of a stroke as well (source: choosemyplate.gov).
