Bananas: Health Benefits You Might Not Know About!

Bananas: Health Benefits You Might Not Know About!

Bananas: Health Benefits You Might Not Know About!

Bananas are rich in potassium, vitamin B6, and antioxidants, and they’re one of the most popular fruits in the world. They also provide belly-filling fibre and carbohydrates, making them a healthy go-to snack when cravings kick in.

These nutritious fruits grow in hot, sunny climes on what most of us would assume are banana trees—but actually, the banana ‘tree’ isn’t a tree at all—it’s a herbaceous plant as it doesn’t have a woody trunk. This also means that bananas are technically berries.

Bananas can be eaten straight from the peel as nature intended, chopped up on toast with a generous helping of peanut butter, whizzed up in a smoothie, or used to make everyone’s favorite lockdown bake—the banana loaf. They even come complete with their own handy, naturally protective packaging, ideal for when we’re on-the-go. In fact, there isn’t really anything bad to say about bananas. So here’s ten reasons we love bananas so much.

Bananas: Health Benefits You Might Not Know About!

1. Improves your immunity

The immune system is a complex system of molecules, cells, tissues, and organs. The cells of the immune system can become damaged by unstable molecules of oxygen called free radicals. Free radicals can enter the body when we eat heavily processed food, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, smoke, or breathe in pollution. They’re also produced as a by-product of normal biological systems such as breathing and digestion.

Antioxidants are essential to help protecting our immune system. And where do we find antioxidants? In fresh fruits and vegetables, including the humble banana! Bananas are rich in vitamin C, which is an antioxidant vitamin, and just one banana contains 12% of our recommended daily intake of vitamin C.

2. Boosts Your Energy Levels

 

It’s quite normal to see a professional athlete or someone embarking on an endurance sport snacking on a banana. But why is this? It’s all down to the perfect blend of fiber and fruit sugar in bananas.

Bananas have a low water content compared to other fruits such as grapes and berries. This means that there’s more room for fiber, which, in combination with their natural sugars, in the form of sucrose, fructose, and glucose, is ideal for providing energy.

These natural sugars give us an instant energy boost whilst being relatively low in calories. The high fibre content of bananas also helps to slow down the digestion of these sugars, helping to sustain us

3. Repairs Your Muscles

We’ve already mentioned that bananas are great for providing energy, especially if we’re training or exercising hard. But did you know that bananas can also support good recovery of tired, hardworking muscles?

This is all down to two minerals found in bananas: potassium and magnesium. Both potassium and magnesium act as electrolytes, which help to manage the delicate fluid balance in the body.

When we exercise, we naturally sweat, and in doing so, we lose electrolytes. When our electrolyte reserves become depleted, we can experience cramping and muscle soreness both during and after exercise. Therefore, topping up our levels of potassium and magnesium by eating a banana after exercise can help our muscles recover, helping to reduce the discomfort that often prevents us from training the following day.

4. Reduces Your Appetite

Bananas are rich in a soluble fiber called pectin—a type of fiber that’s soluble in water. This soluble fiber therefore dissolves in the water in our digestive systems and turns into a gel, which fills the stomach, helping to make us feel fuller. One banana provides about 3 grams of soluble fiber, which is about 10% of the recommended daily intake.

High-fiber foods such as bananas make us feel full due to their ability to swell in our stomachs without extra calories, which is useful if we’re looking to lose or maintain our weight or resist the urge to snack too often!

5. Promotes Good Sleep

Bananas are a rich source of the mineral magnesium, with around 8% of our recommended daily intake in one medium-sized banana. Magnesium is important for achieving good quality sleep by helping to regulate our circadian rhythms, otherwise known as our internal body clock.

Our circadian rhythms are responsible for our sleep-wake cycle, meaning that if our internal body clock is running well, we’ll be more likely to experience good quality sleep and feel awake during the day when we need to.

Also, magnesium helps to manufacture melatonin, which the body uses to help promote rest in the evenings in time for bed. Plus, magnesium helps to reduce levels of the hormone cortisol, our stress hormone that can keep us awake at night. So if you’re looking for the perfect bedtime snack, a banana could be it!

6. Supports Healthy Bones

The health benefits of bananas just keep on giving! As we’ve discovered, bananas are a rich source of vitamin C, an antioxidant vitamin that helps to protect the bone cells from damage by free radicals, just like it protects the cells of the immune system. The vitamin B6 in bananas helps the body manufacture another antioxidant called glutathione, which also protects the bones.

Vitamin C is also essential for the synthesis of collagen. Collagen is a type of protein that keeps the skin plump and cushions the joints, but it also helps to keep the muscles and bones healthy.

Bananas are a good source of copper too, which the body needs in minute amounts to help synthesize connective tissues that help to keep the skeleton strong. Another mineral called manganese is also found in bananas. Manganese helps the body absorb calcium, which is essential for strong bones.

7. Regulates Your Blood Pressure

Bananas are incredibly rich in potassium (one banana contains 10% of the daily recommended intake). Potassium is an important mineral used by the body for many different biological systems, but most crucially, regulating blood pressure.

Eating a diet rich in potassium-giving foods such as bananas can help to keep our blood pressure at a healthy level due to the impact of potassium on the walls of the blood vessels. Potassium helps to relax, or dilate, the blood vessels, helping to lower blood pressure. It also helps us rid ourselves of sodium by passing it in the urine. If sodium levels are too high, it can increase blood pressure.

Studies, such as the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2011, suggest that a potassium-rich diet could lower our risk of heart disease by 26%.

8. Reduces Bloating

As we’ve learned in this article about the hidden health benefits of bananas, this superfruit contains good levels of the mineral potassium, which helps to look after the health of the muscles and blood vessels.

But not only that, potassium can help us beat the dreaded belly bloat, too. This is all down to the fact that potassium counteracts the effects of sodium by helping the body get rid of excess sodium in the urine.

Sodium is a salt and can be found in salty foods such as takeaways, ready meals, and crisps. When we eat these foods, we often feel bloated as the sodium encourages the body to retain water. Bloating is often a result of water retention, so eating a potassium-rich banana can help by reducing sodium and, in turn, reducing water retention.

9. Supports healthy eyesight

Finally on this list of reasons for eating a banana every day (if you don’t like the texture of a banana, add them to a morning smoothie or protein shake to reap the rewards) is the benefit of the potassium in bananas on our vision.

If you struggle with dry eyes, bananas could help, as potassium helps to make the tears that keep our eyes lubricated (even when we’re not crying!).

Not only that, bananas contain carotenoids, compounds that the body uses to manufacture vitamin A. Vitamin A is essential for good eye health and vision. Carrots are a great source of carotenoids; hence, we’re told that carrots can help us see in the dark. But perhaps we should also be eating bananas in order to see well, and not just in the dark!

10. Enhances Your Mood

Tryptophan is an essential amino acid that the body cannot produce by itself. It’s therefore essential that we get it from our diet, hence it being known as an ‘essential’ amino acid. Tryptophan helps the body manufacture a hormone called serotonin, otherwise known as one of our ‘happy hormones’.

Serotonin helps us relax, improves our mood, and can help to reduce mild anxiety. So it certainly lives up to its happy hormone moniker. And yes, you’ve guessed it, bananas are rich in tryptophan, which helps us produce mood-boosting serotonin!

Studies have found that tryptophan and serotonin could also be linked to the level of good bacteria in the gut. Which, as this study demonstrated in 2016 in the journal Nutrients, could be influential over our mood and cognitive function.

Bananas: Health Benefits You Might Not Know About!

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