By Fran Berger, HealthSCOUT Reporter

FRIDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthSCOUT) -- Women -- if you eat your fruit and veggies, your heart will be glad you did.

That's the conclusion of a new study that found women who consumed between four and 10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day decreased their risk of cardiovascular disease by between 20 percent and 30 percent. And, women without any risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as diabetes or hypertension, did even better.

The findings came as no surprise to the research team. In fact, "the 20 to 30 percent reduction in risk associated with increased intake of fruits and vegetables may be a conservative estimate because of the fact that our measurement was not perfect," says Dr. Simin Liu, instructor in the division of preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School and lead researcher.

The researchers looked at data from almost 40,000 women who took part in the Women's Health Study. All were health professionals with no known history of cardiovascular disease, and they recorded how many servings of 28 vegetables and 16 fruits they ate per day.

They were tracked for an average of five years for incidence of heart attack, stroke, coronary angioplasty, coronary bypass or death due to cardiovascular disease. The results of the study appear in the current issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"I'm impressed with the findings of [the percentage] reduction in cardiovascular disease," says David R. Jacobs, professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. "It's probably part of this whole picture we've been seeing," concerning plant food and the health benefits for heart disease.

"It's possible that beyond the antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and phytoestrogens found in plant food, other enzymes and hormones, which both protect the plant from fungus or help to pollinate it, may help prevent disease in humans," Jacobs says. Phytoestrogens are plant compounds that mimic the female hormone, estrogen.

Don't be scared off by the number of servings, says Marc O'Meara, registered dietitian at the Cardiac Wellness Programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "A lot of people feel that 10 vegetables and fruit a day are way too much. But, a serving size is just a half-cup and it's definitely doable for a lot of people."

"The darker the color of the vegetable, the better it is for you," O'Meara says. Broccoli, spinach, any of the peppers -- bell, red, green -- are good choices. And, cooking them doesn't lessen their benefit. "It's been shown with broccoli, that steaming or stir frying can "make [the nutrients] more available to absorption" by your system.

Not having fresh veggies is no excuse, he says. "Frozen vegetables are just as healthy as fresh. My patients who are single often find their fresh vegetables are going rotten by the end of the week, so frozen is the way to go. They are flash frozen and retain nutrients." In fact, fresh vegetables often end up sitting on refrigerated trucks and have a higher level of lost nutrients, he adds.

What To Do

To make sure you're eating enough fruits and veggies, O'Meara recommends you "fill up half your plate with vegetables before putting anything else on it." And make it easy on yourself and use frozen veggies -- "no washing, no chopping, just dump out into a bowl or pan, and you're eating real quick."

When you consider the serving size is only a half-cup, chances are you're already getting more servings than you think, says O'Meara, so getting up to 10 servings a day isn't all that hard.

But if you just can't face eating all that plant food, Liu says having this supporting information on hand, means we "may go for the magic bullet "to make 'a pill' that contains five servings of fruit or vegetables."

(From HealthSCOUT )