Popeye may have overpromised the benefits of eating spinach, but perhaps only by a little.
The leafy green vegetable has been associated with helping to preserve your vision, lowering your blood pressure, and even, as the sailor man himself suggested, improving muscle function. Now, a new study suggests that there's another powerful benefit that could come from incorporating more spinach into your diet—it could protect you from colorectal cancer.
The study, published in the journal Gut Microbes, found that eating spinach can help prevent the formation of tumors in the colon. At least, that was the case for rats. Researchers at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center observed rats for 26 weeks, comparing the development of polyps (benign growths that could turn into cancerous tumors down the line) in those who ate freeze-dried spinach to the ones that didn't eat the leafy green.
The researchers found that spinach boosted the rodents' gut health, promoting biodiversity, which played a role in suppressing tumor growth.
In an interview with Eat This, Not That!, Kathy Siegel, MS, RDN, CDN, and author of The 30-Minute Clean Eating Cookbook and Eating Clean Vegetarian Cookbook, noted that the antioxidants in spinach make it a great addition to any diet.
"Past studies have shown that these protective compounds, along with the vitamin content in spinach, may promote cancer-protective properties," she said. "Spinach is rich in vitamin K, vitamin A, folic acid, manganese,...
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