Good news for spud lovers：a rencent tudy showed potatoes can reduce blood pressure. Scientists fed 18 volunteers potatoes twice a day and found that after a month their average blood pressure readings had improved. The "upper" reading was down by 3.5%, while the diastolic "lower" reading decreased by 4.3%.
Most of the patients were overweight or obese and already taking drugs for high blood pressure, yet the potatoes still appeared to have an effect.
"The potato has an undeserved bad reputation that has led many health-conscious people to ban them from their diet, because they think the potato is fattening, high-carbs," said lead researcher Dr Joe Vinson, from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, US. "In reality, when prepared without frying and served without butter, one potato has only 110 calories and dozens of healthful phytochemicals and vitamins.
For the study, the researchers used purple potatoes that were cooked in a microwave in their jackets without oil. Purple potatoes were chosen because colour pigments in fruits and vegetables are especially rich in beneficial chemicals. But the scientists believe red-skinned or white potatoes may have similar effects.
Dr Vinson presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Denver. He said previous studies had identified substances in potatoes which acted in the same way as ACE inhibitors, widely-used drugs for controlling high blood pressure. Unfortunately for chips, high cooking temperatures destroy most of the healthy chemicals in potatoes, leaving mainly starch, fat and minerals.
Source: Hui Li, Agriculture and Biology School