banana contains plentiful potassium ions, dietary fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants. Delicious and nutritious, bananas are not only healthy snacks, but also great for preventing cancer, cardiovascular diseases, memory decline, and relieving anxiety.
What can a banana a day do for the human body?
1. Cancer Prevention
In a research report published in the International Journal of Cancer in January 2005, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden conducted a 13.4-year study of 61,000 women aged between 40 and 76.
The study found that women who ate at least four bananas a week lowered the risk of kidney cancer by 50 percent.
Women who eat root vegetables such as carrots and beets also have a lower incidence of kidney cancer.
A Japanese study (pdf) discovered that ripe bananas can boost human immune cells to produce tumor necrosis factor (TNF), which can fight abnormal cells.
The darker the patches on the banana skin, the better the immune system enhancement. Yellow-skinned bananas with dark spots have eight times the ability to increase white blood cells than green-skinned bananas.
Bananas also contain substances that have the potential to develop anti-cancer drugs.
A research review published in Frontiers in Oncology in 2021 wrote that the extracts of banana fruits and banana plants show prevention and anti-cancer activities for various types of cancer by regulating different cell signal conduction pathways. The botanical chemicals in bananas can be used to develop multitarget drugs for cancer treatment.
2. Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Disease Prevention
Bananas are rich in magnesium. Magnesium helps reduce the risk of atherosclerosis by lessening the plasma oxidized low-density lipoprotein, also known as bad cholesterol. They also have a lot of potassium, which controls blood pressure and regulates heart rate.
The human body is prone to arrhythmias and elevated blood pressure when it lacks potassium. The right amount of potassium can stabilize the excitability of nerves and muscle cells within the normal range, maintaining the heart’s proper functioning.
