Blue Potatoes lower blood pressure

Valuable potato: The phytochemicals in the colorful bulb have a healthy effect on overweight people with high blood pressure.

Blue potatoes are overweight can help lower their blood pressure. This shows a study by researchers at Joe Vinson of the University of Scranton (U.S. state of Pennsylvania), which was unveiled on Wednesday at a conference of the American Chemical Society. Therefore could obese people who ate a month, the blue bulbs regularly, lowering their blood pressure easily proven. High blood pressure can cause a variety of ailments, including heart disease, arteriosclerosis and eye damage.

In the study, 18 obese patients were placed mainly with high blood pressure blue potatoes for a month on the usual diet. You should eat the exotic blue, because colored fruits and vegetables contain very many phytochemicals, the researchers said. These substances are considered as healthy again. The participants ate twice a day, six to eight of the golf ball-sized tubers with peel. The potatoes were not cooked in oil in the microwave.

During the study, the researchers measured both the so-called upper or systolic blood pressure - ie the value when the heart pumps blood into the arteries - as well as the lower or diastolic blood pressure that is measured when the heart relaxes. The result: The Kartoffelkur was lowered systolic blood pressure on average by 3.5 percent and diastolic by 4.3 percent. Moreover, none of the participants took on weight.

"The potato is probably more than any other vegetable an undeserved bad reputation, which has led to many health-conscious people have them removed from their diet," said Vinson. Lovers of French fries and potato chips could not, however, pleased with the results: because the high temperatures at which the products are made to destroy a large part of the healthy ingredients of the potato, the researchers said. Left behind were mainly starch, fat and minerals.