How a Leafy Green Diet Can Impact the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

Heart failure is one of the silent killers that we live our life trying to avoid at all costs. Typically, heart failure happens when the heart fails to supply enough blood and oxygen to the various organs in your body. About 26 million people experience heart failure globally. It is becoming so prevalent that some health experts have lobbied to have the condition labeled as an epidemic. But it really does not have to reach that level.

A person can actually prevent the onset of heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases by adjusting their diet. You are what you eat so the saying goes, and if you focus on eating a diet filled with leafy green veggies you will be a person who is able to avoid heart failure.

Plant Based Diets and Heart Failure Risk

­­Leafy green vegetables help to lower your risk of heart failure in several ways. The most obvious benefit is that they are low in calories. This means that you can eat a lot of green veggies without having to worry that they are clogging your arteries or raising your cholesterol level. They are the pound for pound best thing you can eat in general.

But the real standout trait of leafy green vegetables is their vitamin K content. Vitamin K is found in leafy green vegetables in abundance. When a person has a vitamin K deficiency, it can lead to some pretty staggering problems for their heart. Specifically, it can cause the left ventricle of the heart to expand to an unhealthy size. The left ventricle is the major chamber of the heart; if it is enlarged too much it will cause the heart to malfunction. That’s why eating leafy green veggies can keep you living strong and healthy.