How Fruit Can Save Your Brain

You know how tempting all those luscious fruits and berries are at your local farmers' market? Go ahead, buy too much. It could save your brain from stroke damage.

This is good news for fruit lovers, and inspiration for everyone else, because each additional juicy apricot, wedge of cantaloupe, or bowl of strawberries you eat during the day slashes your risk of a brain-crippling stroke by 11 percent. All that fruit lowers your heart attack risk, too. Veggies help as well -- they cut stroke odds by another 3 percent -- but researchers recently found fruit the most protective.

How does fruit help squash strokes? Many studies suggest that potassium may be part of the answer. It keeps blood pressure down, and a lot of fruit is full of it. Fruit (veggies too) also is full of fiber and other nutrients that help keep cholesterol levels in check. Want the biggest potassium bang for your produce buck? Reach for bananas, apricots, melons, oranges, nectarines, strawberries, figs, sweet potatoes, spinach, tomatoes, and avocados while cruising the produce aisles. Or better yet, head to the local farmers' market for great buys on the season's freshest produce picks.

Reference
Fruit and vegetable consumption and risk of stroke: a meta-analysis of cohort studies. Dauchet, L., Amouyel, P., Dallongeville, J., Neurology 2005 Oct 25;65(8):1193-1197.