Kiwi: Boost Your Immunity to Eat Everyday

Kiwi, also known as kiwifruit, is a delicious, pulpy fruit that is a powerhouse of a good number of essential nutrients that are extremely healthy for your body. Kiwifruit mainly belongs to the class of large berries and is found to grow in different parts of California, Eastern China, and New Zealand. Apart from having a sweet, fleshy, and natural taste, kiwi is filled with a lot of herbal and medicinal properties that are beneficial for your health. The high amounts of rich and powerful antioxidants, along with vitamin C, and fiber are very much effective in strong immunity, improving the digestive system, and relieving several types of chronic inflammatory diseases.

What is Kiwi?

Kiwi is a sweet and tangy flavored fruit with brown skin, green and pulpy flesh and with black- colored seeds that are edible enough. The fruit grows in the form of woody vine trees and belongs to the genus Actinidia. The fruit houses a lot of essential dietary antioxidants, soluble fibers, and a variety of vitamins together like vitamins C, K, folate, and minerals like potassium, which may be lacking in many popular dishes you have in your regular diet.

Nutrient Contents in Kiwi Fruit:

Kiwis provide the following essential nutrients:

• Vitamin C
• High dietary fiber
• Iron
• Powerful antioxidants like rich carotenoids

A 140-gram serving of a whole, fresh kiwi fruit provides the following nutrients:

• Calories: 90
• Protein: 1 gram
• Fat: 1 gram
• Carbohydrates: 21 grams
• Sugar: 15 grams
• Fiber: 5 grams

Kiwi is a healthy fruit to be included in your regular diet and contains a natural sweetness and thus it does not require to be served with any added sugar or with any artificial sweetener, making it a very healthy and tasty snack or breakfast food.

Kiwi is considered as one of the most important sources of several vital nutrients together especially fiber, folate, and vitamin E.

• Fiber: Fiber is an essential nutrient that not only helps to keep you regular by regulating the proper movement of bowel through your gastrointestinal tract but also takes care of the healthy bacteria in your gut. Moreover, experts and several lab tests have proven high- fiber diets, like the type present in kiwis, are exceptionally beneficial to maintain a healthy heart and your overall body functioning (1).

• Folate: Nutrients like folate help to promote proper growth and development of your body cells and keep your body tissues healthy. These types of healthy nutrition are also beneficial to prevent abnormal cell growth and cell division, and help to prevent neural tube defects during early pregnancy. (2)

• Vitamin E: Recent studies are stating that kiwi has filled with fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin E that are beneficial to keep your cells healthy and prevent oxidation and damage of body cells by disease-causing free radicals.

Health Benefits of Having Kiwi:

1. Takes Good Care of Your Heart

Kiwi contains health extracts like rich antioxidants and powerful vitamins like vitamin C, E, and many other nutrients that are notably effective to keep your heart healthy. A recent study has revealed that kiwis contain essential bioactive substances. Consumption of approximately three kiwis a day can help to reduce high blood pressure levels by regulating dialation of blood vessels and aiding in a smoother flow of blood through the blood vessels. This not only keeps your heart healthy and improves your circulation system, but also helps to keep you free from the risks of developing cardiovascular diseases like heart strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrests, and many other cardiovascular diseases.

2. Treats Chronic Symptoms of Asthma:

Kiwis contain high amounts of essential vitamins like vitamin C and powerful dietary antioxidants are significantly known to treat conditions like chronic asthma treatment among people. A recent study has revealed that the health extracts in kiwi help to treat asthma by improving your lung functioning and lowers down symptoms of wheezing in people with asthma, particularly among children. The huge amounts of citral vitamins in kiwi like vitamin C help to lower down the risks of respiratory diseases and wheezing among asthma patients. So, experts often opine those children should consume kiwis in their diet in correct proportions to treat asthmatic respiratory disorders.

3. Helps to Improve Your Digestive Tract

If you are suffering from digestive disorders, then you should add kiwis to your diet today. Kiwis contain rich proportions of high-quality dietary fibers that are essential fibers that are significantly known to help the easy movement of food particles through your intestines. This helps to regulate proper digestion and helps to keep you regular. Extracts like actinidin in kiwi, a powerful proteolytic enzyme act as an organic catalyst that supports the easy breaking down of protein substances during the process of digestion. A recent study has shown that the essential actinidin enzymes in kiwifruits not only help in digestion but also treat disorders like acute constipation and several other types of gastrointestinal disorders. It has been found that a lot of people suffer from intestinal diseases and digestion-related disorders like irritable bowel syndrome or IBS and stomach pain.

4. Improves Vision

Kiwifruits are rich in essential vitamins and minerals that are rarely found together in many fruits and vegetables. Moreover, kiwi contains rich levels of powerful dietary antioxidants like carotenoids, zeaxanthin, and luteinthat are known to take good care of your eyes by preventing vision problems and eye damage resulting from macular degeneration. So, it has been proven in various scientific studies that consuming about two to three kiwis a day can reduce your chances of vision loss from macular degeneration significantly. (3)

5. Builds Up a Strong Immunity

Kiwi is a rich source of fat-soluble vitamins like vitamin E and citral vitamins like vitamin C, along with high amounts of powerful dietary antioxidants that are extremely beneficial to promote proper absorption system in your body and thus helps to boost up your immune system. Moreover, the high content of antioxidants in kiwi checks the risks of oxidative cell damage and is caused by free radicals which often results in various diseases. Thus, kiwi extracts help to protect your body from various chronic disorders and inflammatory diseases.

Other Health Benefits of Kiwi:

Apart from these, kiwi extracts also provide the following health benefits:

• Optimum cholesterol levels: New lab tests and recent experiments are showing that kiwis are full of health extracts that lower the level of LDL or bad cholesterol and keep the levels of HDL or good cholesterol at an optimum.

• Better iron absorption: Iron is an important mineral that our body needs to produce essential pigments called hemoglobin. These pigments are responsible for maintaining the redness in our blood and also help to manufacture oxygen in blood that further helps to improve circulatory system of the body. Recent studies have revealed that consumption of kiwi helps to manufacture iron in your body that is beneficial to prevent diseases that result from iron deficiency like anemia.

• Blood Coagulation: Kiwis are considered as one most important sources of vitamin K that helps to promote blood clotting from wounded areas and from cut portions.

Potential Health Risks of Having Kiwi:

Kiwis are considered as one of the most delightful fruits and a powerhouse of essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants but there are doubts, that overconsumption of kiwis can lead to several side effects. So, experts often advise limiting your intake of kiwi to 140 grams or less in your regular diet. Some mild symptoms of kiwi may be the following:

• Swelling of throat, lips, or mouth
• Abdominal pain
• Dizziness
• Nausea and vomiting
• Breathlessness or breathing problems
• Skin rashes, allergy or irritation in tounge, lips, mouth and food pipe after having kiwis

Allergies From Kiwi:

Overconsumption of kiwi can cause symptoms like itching or tingling in the mouth, numb or swollen lips, scratchy throat and nasal or sinus congestion among people with history of allergic conditions. So, people who suffer from allergies like oral allergy or latex food allergy syndromes should limit or avoid consumption of kiwis. In cases of discomfort, they should certainly seek professional medical help.

Kidney Dysfunction:

People who have past conditions of kidney- related diseases like kidney stones or had dyalises should not have kiwi in excess amounts because kiwi may increase their levels of oxalates that may be adverse to their health and can further cause damage to their kidneys. If in case you wish to have kiwis, you should always seek the advice from your registered medical care giver before consumption. (4)