Chlorogenic Acid in Purple Potatoes May Lower Blood Pressure
Well, this is a first. Potatoes, long blamed for part of the obesity epidemic in America, along with other high carbohydrate foods, is now being looked at as a potential life saver. However, it’s not the traditional, less nutritious white or yellow potatoe we are talking about.
It’s the small purple potatoe that you sometimes see in specialty stores and are seeing a little more at certain grocery stores as well. The purple potato is high in a nutrient that helps battle a ton of health issues, among them cancer and other diseases that are related to cell break down. This nutrient is polyphenols.
You’ve probably heard of polyphenols because they are abundant in things like red wine and green tea – hence their great reputation for being healthful drinks. The deep purple color of these potatoes is the reason for its high concentration of polyphenols.
Although, that is not the exact known reason why they have been found to result in a statistically lower blood pressure reading in test cases. Polyphenols are a great antioxidant, but that does not necessarily mean that they can help to lower the blood pressure.
Readings in the group that ate a serving of 6-8 of these potatoes were a couple of percentage points lower in their blood pressure readings, which is fairly significant when it comes to blood pressure readings. It was also found that eating the potatoes a couple times a day did not cause weight gain, as may be expected when eating normal white or yellow potatoes.
Perhaps the fiber content of the skins and the center made up for all the starch intake. Notoriously, eating fiber with starch helps slow the digestion of the starch, and hence the release of the resulting sugars into the blood stream.