Why should we diligently eat vegetables and cabbage during the epidemic season?

According to an article published in the journal Nature , cruciferous vegetables in general - for example, kale, collard greens, cabbage, cauliflower... - are a miracle drug that dramatically improves lung health by building an "immune barrier".

This barrier helps people who eat them boost their resistance to flu and other respiratory infections without the complicated or expensive measures that are often thought to boost immunity.

Cruciferous vegetables help to dramatically increase resistance due to their effects on lung cells - Illustration from the Internet

What the Francis Crick Institute team found was a protein called the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), a natural molecule that is abundantly found in cruciferous vegetables, cabbage, and more.

AHR has been shown to boost the immune system in general. But in this new study, they found that it directly affects the endothelial and epithelial cells of the lungs - a strong barrier to keep out harmful pollutants, viruses, and bacteria.

Experiments on mice showed that it was the damaged barrier that made the mice susceptible to flu and severe flu.

In contrast, the mice that ate more AHR had a strengthened barrier in their lungs, thus better protecting them against viruses. As a result, even when they got the flu, the mice that ate the vegetables did not lose weight or become as sick as the other mice.

When AHR is suppressed from being expressed in lung endothelial cells, this barrier is catastrophically disrupted, and the disease becomes severe.

"The exciting part of this study is that it identifies a previously unknown way in which cells lining blood vessels in the lungs can also protect the lungs from damage caused by flu," Dr Claire Bourke, an expert in infection and immunology at Queen Mary University of London, who was not involved in the study, told the Daily Mail.

The results of the study from the Francis Crick Institute, as a continuation of previous work from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), found that eating vegetables of all kinds helps keep the lungs healthy and repels asthma.

All of this gives you more reasons to eat this super healthy group of vegetables. Cruciferous vegetables are also in the group of dark green vegetables, providing the body with many important micronutrients and antioxidants, contributing to repelling cardiovascular problems, metabolism, cancer... as many international studies have proven.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/suc-khoe/vi-sao-nen-sieng-an-rau-cai-bap-cai-moi-mua-dich-20230819214322288.htm