The Health Benefits of Grapefruit  

Grapefruits are Great Fruits!

    What comes to your mind when you heard of grapefruit? You clearly associate it to the small round or oval berries, don’t you?  While grape features semi-translucent flesh encased by a smooth skin., grapefruit is categorized as white (blond), pink or ruby although this doesn't reflect their skin color, which is either yellow or pinkish-yellow, but rather describes the color of their flesh. Grapefruit is a large citrus fruit related to the orange, lemon and pomelo. Recent studies confirm that by adding grapefruit or grapefruit juice to your daily diet, you can shed those unwanted pounds. But wait, grapefruit offers more health benefits than its ability to help us shed pounds.

It is Rich in Nutritional Powerhouse Vitamin C

    Grapefruit is an excellent source of vitamin C, a vitamin that helps support the immune system.Vitamin C-rich foods like grapefruit helps reduce cold symptoms or severity of cold symptoms.

Enjoy Benefits from the Antioxidant Lycopene

    The rich pink and red colors of grapefruit are due to lycopene, a carotenoid phytonutrient. Lycopene appears to have anti-tumor activity. Among the common dietary carotenoids, lycopene has the highest capacity to help fight oxygen free radicals, which are compounds that can damage cells.

Regular consumption of lycopene-rich foods, such as pink grapefruit, and drink green tea may greatly reduce a man's risk of developing prostate cancer.

Limonoids Promote Optimal Health

    Phytonutrients in grapefruit called limonoids inhibit tumor formation by promoting the formation of glutathione-S-transferase, a detoxifying enzyme. This enzyme sparks a reaction in the liver which helps in making toxic compounds more water soluble for excretion from the body. Pulp of citrus fruits like grapefruit also contain glucarates, compounds that may help prevent breast cancer.

Grapefruit Lowers Cholesterol

    Grapefruit contains pectin, a form of soluble fiber that has been shown in animal studies to slow down the progression of atherosclerosis. In one study, animals fed a high-cholesterol diet plus grapefruit pectin had 24% narrowing of their arteries, while animals fed the high-cholesterol diet without grapefruit pectin had 45% narrowing.

Protection against Colon Cancer

    Grapefruit is not only rich in vitamin C, new research presented at the 228th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society provides two more reasons to drink grapefruit juice and these are: protection against lung and colon cancer.

Grapefruit Boosts Liver Enzymes that Clear Out Carcinogens

    Grapefruit juice significantly increases the production and activity of liver detoxification enzymes responsible for preparing toxic compounds for elimination from the body. In this way you help youdr body clear out carcinogen which we are known to be harmful to our health.

Grapefruit's Naringenin Repairs DNA

    Unlike many other cancers, the alarming threat of prostate cancer is growing initially and often remains undetectable for a long time. Naringenin, a flavonoid concentrated in grapefruit, helps repair damaged DNA in human prostate cancer cells (cell line LNCaP). Naringenin helps restore health to damaged DNA by inducing two enzymes that repair DNA during the replication stage. These enzymes, 8-oxoguanine-DNA glycosylase 1 (hOGG1), and DNA polymerase beta (DNA poly beta), are both involved in the DNA base excision repair (BER) pathway. Enjoying grapefruit regularly may be one way to prevent its progression by promoting the repair of damaged DNA in prostate cells, thus preventing them from becoming cancerous.

Prevent Kidney Stones

    Do you want to reduce your risk of calcium oxalate kidney stones? Then , all you have to do is to drink grapefruit juice. A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that when women drank ½ to 1 liter of grapefruit, apple or orange juice daily, their urinary pH value and citric acid excretion increased, significantly dropping their risk of forming calcium oxalate stones, a reason enough to drink grapefruit juice as often as possible.

    Maybe nobody ever told you what the essential nutrients of this great fruit are. Don't let your unawareness rob you of the best possible experience and the lasting benefits it can give. So, next time you’re out grocery shopping, remember to bag lots of grapefruits!