It seems that every time you turn around some news source is talking about the newest superfood. Yet, most of the foods they cover, like blueberries and kale, are found in the local produce section of your favorite supermarket. Moringa, the amazing nutrient-rich plant we are going to be diving into today, is primarily found in supplements and powders.
Moringa is a tree native to India, specifically the southern foothills of the Himalayas, and it has been long used for it’s nutritious and healing properties. This tree is also known as “the Miracle Tree, “the Tree of Life”, and “Mother’s Milk.” These monikers came to be because the locals knew of all the power the leaves hold.
Let’s take a look at each benefit drinking moringa can bring to you.
Table of Contents
Purifies Water
Moringa seed powder has been known as a water purifier for generations. So, what’s so important about purifying your water? As it turns out, purified water is quite beneficial to the human body. Some of the advantages include protection of the respiratory system, brain, and heart as well as digestive help and improved kidney function.
When you add in the fact that your hair and skin also get a natural boost from water that’s been purified it’s hard to argue this substantial benefit of using moringa in your water for purification. When you consider the cost of a home purification system adding some of this powerful powder to your water everyday sounds much more cost-effective.
Lowers High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure comes with its own set of issues. When we let our blood pressure go unchecked our bodies can suffer from a higher risk of heart attack, aneurysm or stroke, go into heart failure, experience a weakening and/or narrowing of kidney blood vessels or the vessels in the eyes can become thicker.
Memory issues and dementia are also fallouts from high blood pressure and you might be at risk if you are overweight, older, or have a history in your family. Luckily, along with appropriate dietary changes and exercise, you can keep a handle on your blood pressure by adding a bit of moringa to your intake.
One study shows that moringa consumption significantly lowered the subjects’ systolic and diastolic blood pressure. With all there is at stake, it couldn’t hurt to give that blood pressure issue a little extra attention with moringa.
May Treat and Prevent Sickle Cell Disease and Anemia
Of all the blood disorders out there anemia is the most common. This isn’t surprising when you look at all the types that can affect us. When you are anemic, you may feel weak, short of breath, an irregular or fast heartbeat, dizziness, headache, chest pain, yellow or pale complexion, or a whoosh sound in your ears.
Sickle cell disease is one of many different types of anemia affecting the world population. It is hereditary and hemolytic, which means that the red blood cells are broken up in the spleen or right in the bloodstream.
One study found that moringa seed held antisickling properties, which is positive, but it also exhibited antiurolithiatic properties, which will help renal functions in patients with this disorder. Another found that “anemia prevalence was reduced” when subjects were given powder extracted from moringa leaves.
Aids In Healing Wounds
Wounds come in all shapes, sizes, depths, colors, etc. There are so many reasons why one might develop a wound we can’t cover them all but some of the most common are cuts, burns, falls, toe stubs, surgeries, and infections. Wounds are painful, can be unsightly, and if left unattended could cause further problems for us.
Moringa extracts have been shown to increase the epithelialization of wounds faster than the normal rate. And the fact is, anytime you can heal any issue you might be dealing with the better off you are. Be sure to check with your doctor before addressing serious wounds, particularly those that result from surgery.
Helps Asthma
Most people have heard of asthma and know that it’s a type of breathing disorder. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that one in every thirteen people suffer from asthma, which causes swelling in the airways narrowing them and making it difficult for the sufferer to breathe.
When asthma hits the infected individual may experience shortness of breath, a tightening of the chest, trouble sleeping, whistling and wheezing when exhaling and coughing attacks. Moringa has been shown to reduce the symptoms of asthma in twenty patients when given the supplement in 3g doses for three weeks.
Works Against Bacterial Diseases
Diseases that fall under the category of bacteria create a list that runs long. Just to name a few, they include tuberculosis, meningitis, cholera, tetanus, Lyme disease, salmonellosis, syphilis and more. Bacteria are abundant in our world, more so than grains of sand on every beach in the world. In fact, those grains host thousands of bacteria themselves.
Studies have shown that extracts derived from the moringa tree showed to have a higher level of antibacterial efficacy than the other extracts used as controls in the study. This does not mean that all bacterial diseases can be healed by drinking moringa, but it is worth investigating further if you suffer from one of the many bacterial infections out there.
Helps With Mood Issues
At one time subjects like depression and anxiety were not talked about. People were afraid to let others know that they felt overwhelmingly sad because these issues were equated with insanity, which we know now is an astronomical jump.
The fact is, anxiety disorders are the most common and affects over 40 million people while Major Depressive Disorder hits more than 16 million. It’s more common than we think, but when we are struggling with either, or both at the same time, it leaves us feeling alone and like anxiety and depression are singling us out.
Moringa has been shown to help on both those emotional fronts. First, one study shows that moringa, when paired with fluoxetine, showed “promising potential” as an alternative treatment for depression. In another study, moringa appeared to contain anti-anxiety properties.
Aids With Heart Disease
The term heart disease is more of a category with several disorders that affect cardiovascular tissues. Some include coronary artery disease, problems with heart rhythms, blood vessel diseases, and others. Narrow or blocked blood vessels that can ultimately cause a heart attack or stroke are specifically cardiovascular disease.
One study showed that moringa had a “beneficial effect” on the “cardiac structure and function.” This experiment focused on hypertension, complications due to high blood pressure, left ventricular hypertrophy, and increasing the risk of heart attack or failure. It’s difficult to deny that drinking this daily could help with heart issues.
May Help Liver Function
A healthy and well functioning liver is essential to our overall health. Your liver removes all the harmful toxins from your bloodstream after it moves through your digestive tract. Because it has such an important job and deals with the bad things in our blood, it’s not surprising our livers can get damaged and overworked.
One study shows moringa to be protective of the liver when it comes to certain toxins. Subject rats showed lower levels of triglycerides, which is the sign of a healthy liver. In 2017 a study was published that showed moringa leaves to prevent hepatic lipid accumulation in guinea pigs. While there is still more research to be done, it seems moringa may help liver functions.
May Help Create Strong Bones
Our skeleton is an essential part of our body. Without it, we would be a blob lying on the floor. This may sound silly but if you have brittle bones that break easily then you could be facing the same fate as a blobby being forced to remain motionless.
Post-menopausal women are at a higher risk for bone issues simply because their bone marrow stops producing osteoblasts, which are the cells that make bone cells. Yet, their osteoclasts are still abundant, which break down bone cells, so once women reach a certain stage in life, their bones begin to weaken.
There are many ways to prevent this. Taking calcium, magnesium, and vitamin D supplements are ways to prevent this issue. Weight training is another way because when we build muscle the bones grow to accommodate them.
Moringa is that miracle ingredient that could give your bones the boost they need because it is full of both calcium and magnesium as well as phosphorus, which all help promote bone health.
One paper suggests it might have a preventative effect on osteoporosis because it has a positive effect on osteoblastic cells, which are responsible for bone cell production.
Loaded With Antioxidants
We keep hearing about antioxidants but do any of us know what they do and why they come so highly recommended? These little guys are protection against free radicals in your cells, which can wreak all kinds of havoc like cancer, heart disease, and other issues.
Extracts from moringa leaves are extremely powerful when it comes to fighting free radicals due to their highly potent antioxidant activity. This can help with oxidative damage that leads to the health issues we’ve discussed.
Reduces Inflammation
Inflammation is a blanket term for any part of our body that experiences redness, pain, and swelling of tissue. When you sprain your ankle, it becomes inflamed. When you cut your skin, the area around the wound can inflame. So on, and so forth. There are two types of inflammation; acute and chronic.
Acute inflammation is short-lived and will subside, while chronic inflammation, like arthritis (inflammation of the joints), can persist for a lifetime. One particular study showed that moringa roots contain anti-inflammatory agents that are useful with acute inflammations.
Lowers Cholesterol
Keeping a handle on your cholesterol levels is imperative to good health. By keeping your cholesterol unchecked you risk cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure, among other things. Professionals recommend exercise and a healthy diet to battle borderline and high cholesterol patients. Many individuals have been prescribed medication.
Moringa has been tested in cholesterol experiments both on humans and animals, which has shown that this addition to your routine could reduce your cholesterol to a healthy level. Of course, this is not meant to substitute your doctor’s advice. Only to add a little extra boost.
May Help Prevent Cancer
Cancer is a scary word. Anyone who is dealing with it or helping a person close to them can tell you the battle can be long and treacherous. Everyone wants to find a cure but, in the meantime, prevention is worth a pound of that.
Moringa might be helpful in that conquest. Certain compounds in moringa called nanocomposites have shown to be effective in destroying cancer cells while leaving healthy cells intact, which is not the case with chemotherapy. Eugenol is another compound found in this tree that has been shown to prevent cancer cells from grouping.
Cancer is a serious issue and we are not suggesting you put all your faith into moringa, but if it doesn’t interact badly with your treatment plan and your doctor gives the okay, then adding a little more power to the fight is always a good thing.
Might Help the Treatment of Diabetes
People with diabetes do not need an explanation of what it is and how it affects their bodies. For the rest of us who have been lucky to evade this dreadful disease, diabetes occurs when the glucose levels in your blood are too high. All of this extra blood sugar can cause problems and even cause the suffering to go into a coma if left unchecked.
Almost ten percent of the population of the United States suffers from diabetes, but it can be manageable if you follow the doctor’s orders and eat a healthy diet. The fiber in moringa seed powder has been shown to effectively lower blood glucose levels in rats.
May Aid with Digestive Issues
Like every other body function we’ve mentioned in this article today, digestive health is essential for all of our other body systems to work. Certain bacteria in our stomach bring an amazing amount of benefits to our digestive system. One of these bacteria is Bifidobacteria, which is abundant in moringa, helps manage body weight and inflammation.
Our stomachs have a lining of mucous cells that protect the tissues from the digestive secretions, aka stomach acids that are released to break down the food. Studies suggest moringa might help protect and augment the lining of the stomach to give extra protection.
Possibly Promotes Brain Health and Function
The further we get down the list the more we see how each of our body functions works with the others and how important they all are when it comes to our overall health and survival. The brain is not different and, it’s safe to say, we couldn’t function without it.
Several studies have shown that moringa may benefit our brains in more ways than one. First, it may prevent the density of neurons, which can happen as we age. But doing this moringa may be helpful with loss of memory.
Due to its ability to fight stress to cells brought on by oxidation, moringa may be able to offer preventative measures to dementia, which is a contributing factor to the failure of cognitive abilities.
Conclusion
It may seem, after reading this, that moringa is going to solve all the problems you might have. This is where we suggest that, while drinking moringa daily to prevent issues and to boost the prevention of the issues we discussed, we are not suggesting that it be used to replace medical advice.
When in doubt, check with a professional and know the side effects before adding any new dietary supplement to your diet. It never hurts to be extra safe. Still, the evidence of the strength and advantages of drinking moringa is quite powerful.
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