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Glossary |
Recipe for Young Lungs: Mango Salsa
Picture yourself running up a couple flights of stairs . . .
If you also imagine your lungs yelling, "Hey! What are you?
Nuts?" -- stop by the store tonight. Pick up a mango, a jalapeno,
a red pepper, and some fresh cilantro. Chop them all up with a
little lime juice, salt, and pepper. Then dip in. This sweet and
spicy salsa will do more than please your palate. The beta
carotene-rich fruits and veggies help ward off normal age-related
declines in lung function.
Regular exercise is a great way to help
keep your respiratory system strong. But your lungs may be helped
by what you eat as well. Dipping into mango salsa is really
dipping into a bowl of lung-friendly, health-protective
antioxidants -- especially beta carotene, the antioxidant compound
that gives mangos, carrots, peppers, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes,
apricots, and many other fruits and veggies their brilliant red,
yellow, and orange hues. An impressive French study has found that
filling your plate with bright, beta carotene-rich foods can help
fight normal slips in lung performance. In other words, a few
daily dollops of mango salsa might keep you dashing up the stairs.
Over this 8-year study, people who had the highest blood levels
of beta carotene lost the least lung function. Beta carotene is a
major scavenger of certain types of free radicals (unstable atoms
that encourage aging and disease) that are particularly harmful to
the lungs. The bottom line? Bright red/yellow/orange foods, from
salsa to squashes, can help keep your lungs young.
Originally published on 05/08/2006.
Tip References:
Serum carotenoids, vitamins A and E, and 8 year lung function
decline in a general population. Guenegou, A., Leynaert,
B., Pin, I., Le Moel, G., Zureik, M., Neukirch, F., Thorax
2006 Apr;61(4):320-326.
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