Eating colourful vegetable linked to longer life

PEOPLE who eat more brightly coloured vegetables live longer and may have a lower risk of cancer and heart disease, according to a study conducted by researchers from the United States of America Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.The researchers examined the health and diets of 15,138 adults over the age of 19 who had participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Follow-up Study. Participants gave blood samples regularly between 1988 and 1994, and again in 2006.The researchers found that those with the highest levels of alpha carotene in their blood were 39 per cent less likely to die during the study than those with the lowest levels. The risk reduction was especially pronounced for heart disease and cancer.Alpha carotene is related to the vitamin a Precursor beta-carotene, and is found in high levels in bight orange, yellow and green vegetables.The researchers also found that vegetables high in alpha carotene appeared to reduce the risk of lung cancer more than other vegetables did.Results suggest that consumption of yellow orange (vegetables such as) carrots, sweet potatoes or pumpkin and winter squash, and dark green (vegetables such as) broccoli, green beans, green peas, spinach, turnips greens, collards and leaf lecture, which have a high alpha carotene content, was more stronger associated with a decreased risk of lung cancer than was consumption of all other types of vegetables, said researcher Chaoyang Li.
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