We have been seeing the importance of including fresh fruits in the everyday diet, especially for seniors. While we have seen apples, oranges and pomegranates are good, today we will look into another delicious fruit, the grapes. Earlier on, we only used to have the grapes with seeds, but with time, we also started getting the seedless grapes. These have now become the rage and big favorite among the people. It is convenient to eat the seedless grapes as you do not have to spit out the seeds.
There are multiple varieties of grapes as well, the green, red, black, yellow and the purple ones, as well as the round and long ones, in both of these colors. Also, as well all know, grapes have been associated with wine, since ancient times. So they have been around for long. So, are grapes good for us and do we gain anything out of eating it? Also, why is it that there are articles that are urging us to eat the seeded grapes? Is there anything special in the seeds that we are missing? Read on, to know the answers and anything else that you needed to know about grapes.
Health Benefits of Grapes
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Grapes contain lots of Vitamins and nutrients that are essential and good for our health. It contains proteins, fiber, potassium, copper, and manganese, as well as Vitamins B6, C, and K. The Vitamin K in grapes helps in blood clotting and maintaining bone health, whereas the Vitamin C, is a rich antioxidant and also helps in tissue health.
As we had seen previously, the environmental stress causes a lot of free radicals in our body, which results in free radicals that in turn cause loaf of bodily harm, resulting in many diseases. The antioxidants in grapes can repair your body and keep it safe from the damage caused by free radicals, thus protecting you against such diseases. This is a big help in preventing diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and even cancer. These antioxidants are said to remain, even after fermentation, which is why wine is also supposed to be good for health, in many cases. Remember the best diet in the world is said to be the Mediterranean diet and this includes a glass of wine, which goes a long way in maintaining health.
Note: The highest antioxidant concentration is grapes are found in its seeds and skin.
Compounds in grapes are also useful in lowering your blood sugar and cholesterol, thus working for your heart health. Another compound present in grapes, called Resveratrol, has been proven to work in cancer prevention and treatment as well. This is so, since it works as an anti-inflammatory agent, and also blocks the growth as well as the spread of the cancerous cells. Along with Resveratrol, there are few other compounds also present in grapes, namely, quercetin, anthocyanins, and catechins, all of which also aid in the cancer prevention cause.
The compound Resveratrol is also helpful in increasing insulin sensitivity and thus helping in the cause of diabetes prevention or management. Well, if you thought, that’s about it, you are in for a surprise. Resveratrol has been proven to protect against eye diseases like glaucoma, cataract and diabetic eye diseases as well!
Grapes and Alzheimer’s?
It gets more interesting. Some studies have proven that consumption of grapes can improve your brain health, boost your memory and give you better cognitive capabilities. The compound Resveratrol has also been found to help prevent Alzheimer’s. While this is yet to be proved comprehensively in humans, studies in mice in this domain, have proven that when fed with grape seed extracts, the mice had better cognitive functions.
Researchers say that the extracts of the grape seed have, great disease-modifying capabilities and hence, people should eat seeded grapes, rather seedless ones. Also, for maximum benefit, people should eat the seeds, and not spit it out. You may want to follow this advice for as much as a 50% reduction in brain cell damage was measured in this study, when grape seed extracts were used. This is also the reason, perhaps, why moderate wine consumption has also been linked to the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. Since, many older people, do not prefer to consume wine or are restricted from doing so, having grape seeds seem to be a simple, cheap and healthy choice to keep this dreaded disease at bay.
