When it comes to lowering your blood pressure, these foods are among your best bets. Nutritious and versatile, beans (including black, white, navy, lima, pinto, and kidney) are chock-full of soluble fiber, magnesium, and potassium, all excellent ingredients for lowering blood pressure and improving overall heart health.
Here is what we discovered. cooked dry beans, peas and lentils can be good protection against high blood pressure due to their large potassium contributions to your diet. Recommended Potassium and Sodium Intakes Currently, Harvard Medical School estimates the average intake of sodium is 3,400mg and 2,500mg of potassium per day for a ratio of 1.36 to 1.
This begs the question “Can eating legumes help lower blood pressure?”
Researchers found specifically that eating about a cup a day of legumes (190 grams) — which include beans, peas and lentils — is linked with lower blood pressure levels, which is important because “blood pressure is a big contributor to renal failure in these patients,” Jenkins said in the statement.
Do beans lower blood sugar?
Eating Beans will lower your blood sugar. Eating at least 5 cups of beans a week improves your overall blood sugar control. A couple extra ideas to pay attention too are: eating beans reduces your risk of heart disease, eating beans reduces blood fat issues (lipids, cholesterol), or eating beans lowers high blood pressure.
One article argued that While nearly all beans have a low glycemic load ranking and will not raise your blood sugar, the fiber in beans will also help lower and stabilize your blood sugar if you eat other higher glycemic index foods. The fiber, specifically the soluble fiber, prevents glucose from other foods and beverages from digesting in your body as quickly.
A cup of beans or lentils each day, when combined with a low-glycemic diet, helped lower blood sugar levels and coronary artery disease risk in patients with type 2 diabetes. Those are the findings in a study published online Oct. 22, 2012, in Archives of Internal Medicine.
One of the next things we asked ourselves was: are beans good for you if you have diabetes?
Legumes – chickpeas, kidney beans, black beans, navy beans, lentils – help regulate blood sugar, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, and guard against heart attack and cancer. Now, a new study in the August issue of Diabetologia adds to the growing evidence that beans are good for you, especially if you have diabetes.
Can beans lower your cholesterol levels?
“Your LDL cholesterol levels will drop because beans are rich is soluble fiber,” she told The List. “Soluble fiber attaches to cholesterol particles and takes them out of the body, helping to reduce overall cholesterol levels.” The benefits are even more abundant when you switch out the meat in your diet for beans, according to Gultry.
What are the health benefits of beans?
Beans may help control blood sugar in people with diabetes. A cup of beans or lentils each day, when combined with a low-glycemic diet, helped lower blood sugar levels and coronary artery disease risk in patients with type 2 diabetes.