People with diabetes are up to five times more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes — both of which are linked to damaged blood vessels.
Cardiovascular diseases are most common side effect of the diabetes. Almost 65 percent of people with diabetes die from heart attack or stroke. This is why keeping your heart healthy is extremely important if you have diabetes.
Diabetes, when is not controlled, damages the blood vessels, including those which lead to the brain and heart. This enhances the possibility of formation of plaques, or also known as atherosclerosis, which can gradually make difficult for the blood to flow and this can eventually result in high blood pressure or hypertension.
According to the Mayo Clinic statistics, if you have diabetes you:
Are two to four times as likely to have a heart attack or stroke (compared to someone without diabetes).
Are more likely to die from a heart attack
People who have diabetes have the same risk for sudden death from a heart attack as someone who has already had a heart attack. The NBC correspondent, who recently died from a heart attack, had diabetes and coronary artery disease, which increased the risk of sudden death. Unfortunately, about 70 percent of people with diabetes are not aware of those risks.
On the other hand, if you have suffered a heart attack, you should do analyses for diabetes or pre-diabetes. Some research showed that more than two-thirds of heart attack patients had blood sugar irregularity, which was in the form of pre-diabetes or diabetes.
How Might Broccoli Help?
Broccoli`s healthiest compound is the phytochemical sulforapane. This compound can help you to restore your immune system as you grow older and improve the ability of the liver to eliminate the toxins, carcinogenic compounds and free radicals from your body. Sulforaphane protects the cells from mutation, cancer or other harmful effects.
This compound protects your heart as well, in two ways:
1. It helps in reduction of the harmful molecules called Radioactive Oxygen Species (ROS).
2. It activates a protein called nrf2, which stimulates antioxidants and detoxifying enzymes that protect your cells and tissues.
However, broccoli is not the only vegetable rich in sulforaphane. Plants from the cruciferous family, such as turnips, cabbage, mustard greens, cauliflower, rutabaga, radishes, bok choy and others also contain sulforaphane.
In addition, you should find out your nutritional type because some people do not do well with broccoli.
For example, if you are a protein nutritional type, you should not consume a lot dark green vegetables. This results with over-alkalized body which can do more damage than to improve your health. This is because of the presence of many phytonutrients.
However, cauliflower can be beneficial for protein types.
It is very important to understand your body at a deeper level. If you`re a protein type and you consume broccoli, it can lead to metabolic biochemistry disruption which can eliminate its benefits.