Scientific Health Benefits of Sweet Potatoes Suggested by Grill Heat Aid

Sweet potatoes are a rich source of fibre as well as containing an array of vitamins and minerals including iron, calcium, selenium, and they’re a good source of most of our B vitamins and vitamin C. One of the key nutritional benefits of sweet potato is that they’re high in an antioxidant known as beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A once consumed. 

Nutritious

Sweet potatoes are a great source of fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

One cup (200 grams) of baked sweet potato with skin provides:

• Calories: 180
• Carbs: 41.4 grams
• Protein: 4 grams
• Fat: 0.3 grams
• Fiber: 6.6 grams
• Vitamin A: 769% of the Daily Value (DV)
• Vitamin C: 65% of the DV
• Manganese: 50% of the DV
• Vitamin B6: 29% of the DV
• Potassium: 27% of the DV
• Pantothenic acid: 18% of the DV
• Copper: 16% of the DV
• Niacin: 15% of the DV

Support Digestive Health: Sweet potatoes are an excellent source of fiber, especially when you eat the skin. Fiber is important for your digestive health, preventing constipation and serious diseases, such as colon cancer. One medium sweet potato has six grams of dietary fiber. They also contain resistant starch, a type of starch that plays a role in feeding your body’s “good” bacteria.

Keep Your Heart Healthy: The high fiber content of sweet potatoes can lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, helping to prevent cardiovascular disease. Sweet potatoes are also high in potassium, which works in balance with sodium in your body to maintain healthy blood pressure. They’re also high in copper, an essential metal for making red blood cells and keeping your heart healthy. Low levels of copper have been linked to dangerously high homocysteine, blood pressure, and LDL cholesterol levels.

Help Stabilize Blood Sugar: The fiber and complex carbohydrates in sweet potatoes can help keep your blood sugar stable. And it can help you feel full longer. Sweet potato varieties also contain other substances that benefit stable blood sugar. It naturally reduces and manages blood glucose in people with type 2 diabetes.

Can Boost Your Immunity: Sweet potatoes are rich in antioxidants that prevent free radical damage in your body. One cup of baked sweet potato contains 52% of your daily value for vitamin C, which is important for wound healing and tissue repair. And vitamin A in sweet potatoes helps your body make immune cells that stave off infections and disease and have anti-tumor effects. Purple sweet potatoes contain especially potent antioxidants.

Can Help Fight Cancer: Sweet potatoes are a rich source of cancer-fighting antioxidants, especially in their skin. They have other anti-cancer properties, too. Up to 80% of the protein in sweet potatoes is a type of storage protein known as sporamin. This unique protein has been studied for anti-cancer ability and found to be effective in several disease types. Research has been promising in the use of sporamin to inhibit tongue, gallbladder, and colorectal cancers. It has also been shown capable of slowing cancer cell growth and reducing cell migration and invasion in metastatic cancers.

Good for Your Eyes: Sweet potatoes contain several nutrients that have been linked to improved eye health and vision. Some of the most powerful are the carotenoids. They include alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin. Beta-carotene, when taken as a supplement in isolation from the other carotenoids, can cause imbalances. But when eaten in foods, where it is always accompanied by, and in balance with, an entire suite of carotenoids, it’s been shown to have powerful anti-cancer and vision-enhancing properties.

Fuel Your Brain: Sweet potatoes also contain compounds that help your brain function at its best, including choline and manganese. Choline is an essential nutrient for brain growth and development, as well as the synthesis of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine that sends messages between cells. Manganese is also important for brain health. It binds to neurotransmitters and helps move electrical impulses through your body faster. You can find 43% of your daily value of manganese in one cup of baked sweet potato.

Can Help Ease Stress and Anxiety: Sweet potatoes may help you relax. They’re high in magnesium, which has been shown to play a role in calming the brain. Magnesium deficiency has been linked to depression, mood disturbances, and headaches. Other good sources of magnesium include avocados, legumes, tofu, nuts, seeds, and leafy greens.

Help Boost Fertility: Vitamin A is an essential nutrient for healthy reproduction. And as we know, sweet potatoes are a fantastic source. Sweet potatoes also offer a rich supply of iron, which has also been shown to be important in supporting fertility.

Diabetes: Compounds in sweet potatoes could help control blood sugar. When boiled, sweet potatoes are low on the glycemic index (GI), which means they won't raise your blood sugar as quickly as high-GI foods.

Heart disease: Sweet potatoes are categorized as low to high on the glycemic index scale, and several studies have indicated that it can minimize the occurrence of insulin resistance and low blood sugar levels, as well as high blood sugar in people who are suffering from diabetes

Macular degeneration: Large amounts of beta-carotene and vitamin A, which are in sweet potatoes, can lower your chances of getting this eye disease, which is the most common cause of vision loss.

Prevent Vitamin A deficiency: Vitamin A deficiency is a serious issue especially in developing nations around the world. The health repercussions of a vitamin A deficiency are grave and can include decreased resistance to infectious disease, increase in infectious morbidity, dry eyes as well as increased mortality for both pregnant and lactating women and their children.

Help improve hair and skin: As mentioned above, sweet potatoes are rich in vitamin A. The vegetables are also rich in Vitamin C and Vitamin E. Vitamin A has been proven to be effective in the treatment and management of sun-damaged skin. In addition, the studies have shown that the vitamin is also effective in the treatment of skin cancer along with chemotherapy, and other treatment solutions. Other studies have shown that Vitamin A is an effective stimulant of collagen, making it useful in decreasing the rate of natural cell aging as well as inhibiting the photoaging of our skin.