Peas, New Secrets Extend Age

Eating peas can be beneficial to heart health, even raising hopes for a more long-lived.

A selection of food can help a person avoid the risk of heart failure, where the heart becomes too weak to pump blood around the body. And men seem to benefit more than women.

Scientists say that men who regularly eat legumes, likely to die from heart failure can be reduced by 50 percent. In addition, the peas were also assessed daily intake can menajadi to have longevity.

The main ingredient in beans that have a defensive role against heart disease is a natural compound called spermidine. The compound is also found in foods such as blue cheese, chicken liver, and shellfish.

Spermidine was first discovered by scientists in the semen of men and is considered essential for the growth of healthy tissue.

But in recent years, studies have shown that foods with high levels of spermidine also can slow the aging process and protect the health of the heart.

And to get these conclusions, the international research team led by scientists from the University of Graz, Austria, has conducted two experiments.




One of the experiments carried out on animals. Researchers gave mice drinking water laced with high levels of spermidine to see if it makes them live longer.

Meanwhile, a second trial conducted in humans, involving 800 people, to see the relationship between the consumption of foods rich in heart failure spermidine levels.

Results showed that mice given the compound can live 20 to 30 days longer than those who were not given spermidine.

And men who eat peas or other foods rich spermidine, 50 percent less likely to die of heart failure, reports the journal Nature Medicine.

The scientists said the mice would live longer because of spermidine triggers the body to perform a process called autophagy, the recycling process of damaged cells. In fact, increasing the intake in the early '40s may have a stronger effect, the researchers said.

Last year, another team of academics find spermidine help prevent cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Spermidine works by slowing the body's internal clock, so that the cells will be much longer "young" and less prone to age-related diseases.