Be Healthy with Spinach

     Look for vibrant, deep green leaves with no signs of yellowing or slime.

• Spinach may protect against osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, arthritis, and other diseases.
• Anticancer properties of spinach flavonoids have prompted researchers to create specialized spinach extracts to use in controlled studies. These extracts have shown some effectiveness with stomach, skin and breast cancer.
• Neoxanthin, a carotenoid found in spinach and other green leafy vegetables fights human prostate cancer two different ways.
• A 40% reduction in risk of ovarian cancer was shown in women whose diets provided the most kaempferol, a favonoid in spinach.
• Vitamin K provided in large quantities by spinach is important for maintaining bone health. Osteocalcin, the major non-collagen protein in bone is activated by vitamin K1. The protein anchors bone calcium.
• Few foods compare to spinach in their number of helpful nutrients for protection against atherosclerosis and diabetic heart disease. Spinach is an excellent source of vitamin C and vitamin A, the latter through its concentration of beta-carotene. These two nutrients are important antioxidants that complement each other to reduce the amounts of free radicals in the body.
• Spinach is also an excellent source of folate, needed by the body to help prevent heart attack or stroke by converting a potentially dangerous chemical called homocysteine into other, benign molecules.
• Spinach produced a blood pressure lowering effect within two to four hours when given to laboratory animals bred to be hypertensive.
• People who eat foods high in vitamin C, beta-carotene, and/or folate such as spinach are at a much lower risk of getting colon cancer than those who don't, studies show.
• Nutrients in spinach can also help with conditions in which inflammation plays a role such as, asthma, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
• Spinach may help protect the brain from oxidative stress and may reduce the effects of age-related related declines in brain function, Eating just 3 servings of green leafy, yellow and cruciferous vegetables each day could slow mental decline associated with aging by 40%.
• Lutein, a carotenoid protective against eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and cataract, is found in green vegetables, especially spinach.
• Cooked spinach is an excellent source of iron. Compared to red meat, a well-known source of iron, spinach provides iron for a lot less calories and is totally fat-free.A traditional medicine for gastrointestinal problems, modern research is finding ginger to have excellent anti-nausea, anti-oxidant, anti-inflamatory and cancer fighting properties.
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  Source: World’s Healthiest Food