Bananas: what are the benefits and harms for the body

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

It is a delicious way to keep your heart healthy and youthful.

What are the beneficial substances in bananas?

Eating one large banana (about 200 g) will give you Banana, Raw:

• vitamin B6 - 41% of the required daily value;
• vitamin C - 33%;
• manganese - 30%;
• potassium - 23%;
• magnesium - 15%;
• folate (vitamin B9, its synthetic form is folic acid) - 11%;
• riboflavin (vitamin B2) - 10%.

In addition, banana contains other B vitamins, vitamins A, E and K, as well as copper, phosphorus, zinc, and iron.

What are the health benefits of bananas

This is what the fruit does in the body.

1. Supports Healthy Blood Sugar Levels

The basis of a banana is carbohydrates, including fiber. One of its types - pectin Modification of pectin polysaccharides during ripening of postharvest banana fruit - gives the pulp a spongy shape. The other, starch, is responsible for the dense consistency. As the banana ripens, the starch breaks down into monosaccharides and disaccharides, so the fruit becomes softer and sweeter.

Both pectin and starch (which is especially abundant in unripe bananas) reduce Resistant Starch: The Effect on Postprandial Glycemia, Hormonal Response, and Satiety, Sustained Pectin Ingestion Delays Gastric Emptying blood sugar after a meal, preventing drastic changes in blood sugar. This means that such a treat serves as a kind of prevention of hyperglycemia.

2. Helps stay full longer

All the same pectin and starch slow down Resistant Starch: The Effect on Postprandial Glycemia, Hormonal Response, and Satiety, Sustained Pectin Ingestion Delays Gastric Emptying gastric emptying. Food is digested in a better quality and measured way, and a person feels full longer.

3. Improves the health of the digestive system

The starch is not digested in the upper digestive system and reaches the colon. Here it becomes food Short-chain Fatty Acids and Human Colonic Function: Roles of Resistant Starch and Nonstarch Polysaccharides for beneficial bacteria, that is, improves the condition of the intestinal microflora.

And pectin, in turn, may protect against colon cancer. At least this is supported by several studies of Anti-cancer Activities of pH-Or Heat-Modified Pectin, Pectin and Pectic-Oligosaccharides Induce Apoptosis in in Vitro Human Colonic Adenocarcinoma Cells in vitro.

4. May help you lose weight

To date, there are no studies that would unequivocally report: if you eat a banana every day, you can lose weight. But indirect evidence is optimistic. For example, regular consumption of fruits and vegetables, which are high in fiber, is known to be associated with weight loss.

There are other factors as well. For example, a medium-sized banana has only about 105 kcal 11 Evidence-Based Health Benefits of Bananas. This is about the same as 2.5% fat in a glass of kefir. At the same time, a banana is very satisfying: by eating it, you will be able to do without harmful and high-calorie snacks for a longer time.

5. Strengthens the heart

Potassium is a mineral that is essential for the normal functioning of the heart. Potassium Intake and Risk of Stroke in Women With Hypertension and Nonhypertension in the Women’s Health Initiative is known to have a potassium-rich diet to normalize blood pressure and reduce the risk of stroke. But often people don't get Potassium Intake of the U. S. Population of this substance in sufficient quantity.

Eating bananas daily is a way to avoid potassium deficiency.

In addition, bananas are high in magnesium, which also plays a role in Magnesium: Its Proven and Potential Clinical Significance plays an important role in the normal functioning of the cardiovascular system.

6. Reduces the risk of kidney disease

In one 13-year study Fruits, Vegetables and Risk of Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Prospective Study of Swedish Women, scientists found that women who ate bananas 2-3 times a week had kidney disease 33% less likely than those who consumed these fruits hardly ate.

Another study, the A Case-Control Study of Diet and Risk of Renal Adenocarcinoma, found that eating bananas 4-6 times a week reduced the risk of kidney disease by 50%.

7. Helps Maintain Youth and Brain Health

Bananas contain several types of antioxidants, including High Content of Dopamine, a Strong Antioxidant, in Cavendish Banana, and Antioxidant compounds from bananas (Musa Cavendish). These compounds fight free radicals that damage organ and tissue molecules.

Modern medicine believes that it is free radicals (more precisely, the oxidative stress they cause) that often cause early aging and such dangerous diseases as cancer, dementia and other brain dysfunctions, cardiovascular and autoimmune disorders.

When you eat a banana, you reduce the damage that oxidative stress does to your body.

How and to whom can bananas harm?

Most often, bananas are completely safe Banana. Side Effects. The exception is people who are allergic to this fruit. Curiously, it is often cross-linked: an unhealthy reaction to a banana is seen in those who suffer from latex allergies.

In extremely rare cases, bananas can cause:

• bloating;
• a soft chair;
• nausea and vomiting.

To avoid these side effects, it is enough not to overeat bananas. One or two fruits a day is enough to get only the benefit and not the slightest harm.