Vegetables prevent heart disease

[Naveed Yaseen]

Eating vegetables and fruits may reduce cholesterol, prevent build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries and can provide protection against heart disease, according to a study on mice.

US researchers led by Michael Adams at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine assessed the effect of diet on heart disease by studying mice, reported online edition of BBC News.

These mice had been specially bred to rapidly develop atherosclerosis - the formation of fatty plaques in the arteries that can eventually block blood flow leading to heart attacks and strokes. Half of the studied mice were fed a vegetable-free diet and half the mice were fed a diet that included broccoli, green beans, corn, peas and carrots.

After 16 weeks, researchers measured cholesterol content in the blood vessels and plaques in the arteries of the mice. They found 38 percent less build-up of fatty deposits in the arteries of mice that were fed a mixture of vegetables, including carrots and peas. “Although the pathways involved remain uncertain, the results indicate that a diet rich in green and yellow vegetables inhibits the development of hardening of the arteries and may reduce the risk of heart disease,” Adams said.

Delayed cord clamping may boosts iron in infants: A delay of only two minutes in clamping the umbilical cord may boost an infant’s iron reserves and could be a low-cost way to intervene at birth without harming the infant or the mother, says a new study.

During the past century, it became a common practice to clamp the cord about 10 seconds after the baby’s shoulders are delivered. However, there has been little scientific research to justify such rapid clamping, scientists said. Kathryn Dewey of the University of California, Davis, and other researchers studied 476 normal-weights, full-term infants and their mothers and found that a delay in cord clamping increased the child’s iron reserve by 27-47 mg - equivalent to one to two months of the infant’s iron requirements, reported science portal EurekAlert. The 16-month-long study, published in the latest issue of the British medical journal, The Lancet, reveals that the clamping delay could help a baby to prevent development of iron deficiency before six months of age, when iron-fortified foods could be introduced.

Iron deficiency in children is a concern for both wealthy and poor nations, more so in developing countries where half of all children become anemic during their first year, putting them at risk of serious developmental problems that may not be reversible, even with iron treatments.

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