Eat your vegetables – your heart health may depend on it.
Like fruits, vegetables provide important nutrients for preventing heart disease and may even improve cardiorespiratory fitness, which is the body’s ability to supply and use oxygen for exercise.
Eating lots of vegetables may be as good for your heart as taking 4,000 extra steps each day, according to a 2023 study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
Cardiologists are not surprised.
“A diet rich in vegetables is very healthy for the heart for several reasons. First, it might actually replace other bad things that people eat — if you eat more vegetables, maybe you’re not eating garbage,” Dr. Marc Eisenberg, clinical cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, tells TODAY.com.
People who eat more fruits and vegetables have fewer heart attacks and strokes, adds Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver.
How do vegetables affect the heart?
Diets rich in fruits and vegetables are beneficial for blood pressure, cholesterol and weight maintenance, says Dr. Sean Heffron, a cardiologist at the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at NYU Langone Health in New York.
This may be due to antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals (compounds that plants produce for their own protection), as well as other as-yet-unknown mechanisms, he adds.
“Everyone tries to extract all the important chemicals from fruits and vegetables and create supplements, but they never do as good as the original,” says Freeman. “That’s because the matrix that the fruit or vegetable goes into is really healthy.”
The fiber in vegetables binds to cholesterol in the gut so it doesn’t return to circulation, Heffron says, helping to lower total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, studies show.
Eating more fiber also causes gut bacteria to produce compounds that lower blood pressure, researchers reported in April 2024 in the journal Hypertension.
Which vegetable is best for the heart?
All vegetables are good for you, says the American Heart Association. He recommends eating 4.5 cups of vegetables every day. Choosing lots of colors – yellow squash, green beans, red peppers – means you get lots of nutrients.
The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute lists vegetables such as leafy greens – including spinach, collard greens, kale and cabbage – as well as broccoli and carrots as key parts of a healthy diet for the heart.
Cardiologists say they try to eat a variety of options. They listed these vegetables among their heart-healthy favorites:
Leafy vegetables
Eating one cup of green leafy vegetables a day may reduce the risk of heart disease, according to a 2021 study in the European Journal of Epidemiology.
That’s because they’re a major dietary source of nitrate, a phytochemical found in vegetables that lowers blood pressure and improves endothelial function, or blood flow, the researchers note.
Green leafy vegetables are also packed with antioxidants, notes Eisenberg. They are rich in vitamins A, C, E and K and provide folate, a B vitamin that promotes heart health, according to the USDA Agricultural Research Service.
“I try to eat as many green leafy vegetables as possible,” says Freeman. “It could be spinach, arugula, kale or broccoli.”
He likes to have a big salad bowl for lunch filled with a mix of different greens.
Greens can also be easily incorporated into smoothies or sauces, adds Heffron. He likes to boil, then puree broccoli or spinach and make a pesto with that mixture.
Beets
This purple root vegetable is another rich source of antioxidants, fiber and minerals. Beets are also particularly high in nitrates, and their juice has been shown to lower blood pressure.
How it works? After a person consumes nitrate, the body converts it to nitric oxide, which opens blood vessels and promotes blood flow, leading to less pressure in the arteries, says registered dietitian Natalie Rizzo, senior nutrition editor for TODAY.
“Of all the nutritional data, I personally find some of it the most compelling,” says Heffron. “Beets are something I recommend to people.”
He likes to roast beets, cool them and put them in a strawberry banana smoothie. Other recipes to try are a Citrus Beet Salad and a Roasted Beet and Honey Yogurt Dip.
Beet greens can be sautéed and are delicious on their own.
Overall, beets are a “really powerful” natural way to lower blood pressure, Freeman says.
“The only caution I would give is that if you eat beets, it can turn your urine and stools red, which sometimes freaks people out,” he adds.
Artichokes
They are popular in the Mediterranean region and are one of Eisenberg and Heffron’s favorite vegetables.
Artichokes contain the most antioxidants of any vegetable except beans, according to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Antioxidants circulate through the body and correct all the damage people have accumulated simply by living and breathing oxygen, Freeman notes.
According to a review of studies, when people took artichoke leaf extract supplements, it led to a “significant reduction” in blood pressure. It also led to a decrease in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, according to a separate study.
Artichokes contain so much fiber and antioxidants that they should be considered a superfood, registered dietitian Theresa Gentile previously told TODAY.com.
Asparagus
Asparagus contains asparaptin, a compound that may improve blood circulation and help lower blood pressure, registered dietitian Grace Derocha told TODAY.com.
One of Eisenberg and Heffron’s favorite vegetables, asparagus also has a diuretic effect, which helps the body get rid of excess sodium and thus lower blood pressure.
Tomatoes
Eisenberg likes tomatoes, which are an important part of the Mediterranean diet and are rich in lycopene, a “powerful antioxidant” believed to have a protective effect on the cardiovascular system, according to studies.
It can improve blood pressure and blood circulation, as well as reduce the size of plaque that builds up in the arteries.
Lycopene is particularly well absorbed by the body when tomatoes are heated and consumed with fat – in the form of tomato sauce cooked with olive oil for example.
Tomatoes are among the vegetables associated with a lower risk of coronary heart disease, according to a review of studies analyzing the impact of diet on health.