Eating colourful vegetable linked to longer life

PEOPLE who eat more brightly coloured
vegetables live longer and may have a
lower risk of cancer and heart disease,
according to a study conducted by
researchers from the United States of
America Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) and published in the
Archives of Internal Medicine.
The researchers examined the health and
diets of 15,138 adults over the age of 19
who had participated in the Third National
Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
Follow-up Study. Participants gave blood
samples regularly between 1988 and 1994,
and again in 2006.
The researchers found that those with the
highest levels of alpha carotene in their
blood were 39 per cent less likely to die
during the study than those with the lowest
levels. The risk reduction was especially
pronounced for heart disease and cancer.
Alpha carotene is related to the vitamin a
Precursor beta-carotene, and is found in
high levels in bight orange, yellow and
green vegetables.
The researchers also found that vegetables
high in alpha carotene appeared to reduce
the risk of lung cancer more than other
vegetables did.
“Results… suggest that consumption of
yellow orange (vegetables such as) carrots,
sweet potatoes or pumpkin and winter
squash, and dark green (vegetables such as)
broccoli, green beans, green peas, spinach,
turnips greens, collards and leaf lecture,
which have a high alpha carotene content,
was more stronger associated with a
decreased risk of lung cancer than was
consumption of all other types of
vegetables, ” said researcher Chaoyang Li.