A damaged heart may mend with time, but maintaining the health of your heart may take more. And the issue gets considerably more complicated if you're attempting to repair or avoid something like heart disease.
Diabetes, high blood pressure, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, heredity, age, and high cholesterol are all factors that increase the risk of heart disease, which affects more than 30 million Americans each year. Many of these risk factors, as you can see, are linked to diet and eating habits.
So, how can you consume in a way that will benefit your heart's health? While there are many heart-healthy meals to choose from, including enough fruits and vegetables in your daily diet is an excellent place to start.
When it comes to heart health, you can't go wrong with any fruit or vegetable, but leafy greens like kale or spinach, according to a meta-analysis published in JRSM Cardiovascular Disease, are one of the healthiest veggies for your heart.
KALE
SPINACH
The purpose of this review was to gather relevant data from around the world to see if leafy green and cruciferous vegetables may help reduce cardiovascular disease.
Many individuals all around the world are damaging their health by not eating enough green vegetables on a daily basis, according to the study.
Fibre, antioxidants, and potassium are all abundant in these vegetables. Kale is high in vitamin B, C, and calcium, whereas spinach is high in vitamin A, K, C, iron, and folate.
Leafy greens have been shown to be advantageous to many aspects of your health in previous studies, and this new study confirms that they are also excellent for your heart.
To learn more about its heart health benefits, the researchers looked at 13 separate studies that investigated the relationship between leafy greens and various cardiovascular events such as incidents of stroke, cerebrovascular heart disease, and coronary heart disease.
What they found was that consuming more leafy greens on a regular basis can reduce your risk of these cardiovascular events by almost 16%.
This research also concluded that while leafy green vegetables are good for your heart, you can get the most from their nutritional value when you steam them.
So what does this research mean for you and your heart health? These findings can serve as motivation for all of us to incorporate more leafy greens into our regular diets, regardless of our current heart health. And if you're someone who may be at a higher risk of heart disease or may be concerned about the health of your heart, talk with your doctor about the next right steps for you and your eating habits!