It is not normally thought of as an energy food. But watercress could give you the boost you need before going to the gym.
Nutrients in the peppery leaves reduce exercise-related damage to DNA, research shows.
While
exercise has many benefits, it also leads to higher-than-usual
production of free radicals - dangerous oxygen molecules said to have a
hand in everything from ageing to diabetes and cancer.
Watercress, it seems, is particularly
rich in antioxidant chemicals that mop up these free radicals. Eaten
ahead of exercise, it keeps DNA damage at bay.
Sports
scientists from Edinburgh Napier University took blood samples from ten
healthy young men and asked them to eat a small bag of watercress a day
for eight weeks. They
then put them through their paces on a treadmill, by making them run
fairly quickly while gradually increasing the gradient.
Source - Daily Mail
