Making yourself a daily juice can have great benefits for your heart health. Juicing provides us with a multitude and abundance of vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that can help prevent us from developing heart disease or even reverse the effects of present problems.

It almost doesn’t matter which fruit or vegetable that we choose to juice, almost all of them contain the heart health benefits of vitamin C. When it comes to the health of our arteries, vitamin C plays two very important roles. First, vitamin C is essential for the synthesis of collagen. Collagen is needed to build healthy artery walls that are firm and elasticated allowing the arteries to expand and contract to pump the blood to the heart. This keeps blood pressure in a normal range and drastically reduces the chances of arteriosclerosis from developing. If we don’t consume enough vitamin C to make enough collagen then the body uses cholesterol instead!

Vitamin C is also a powerful antioxidant that protects cholesterol in the blood stream from oxidative damage caused by free radicals. When cholesterol is damaged in this way it attach itself to the artery walls and starts to form a plaque that becomes arteriosclerosis. So we can see how important it is for our heart to have a daily supply of vitamin C!

One of the benefits of juicing for vitamin C is bio-availability. Supplements are less bio-available. Meaning that less of the vitamin C is actually absorbed into the bloodstream during digestion than if it came from a ‘real’ food source. Juicing also removes the fiber from fruits and vegetables and therefore juice recipes need very little digesting. This increases bio-availability and lets the nutrients like vitamin C easily and quickly enter the bloodstream.

A research study found that the benefits of juicing apples helped to lower blood pressure. Participants with high blood pressure were given a daily 12 ounce glass of apple juice every day. After two weeks they all displayed a remarkable drop in blood pressure levels! Another study also found that the effect was even greater when cloudy apple juice was consumed rather than clear apple juice. Cloudy apple juice is produced by juicing apples with their skins on. The skins are a great source of antioxidants called flavonoids which researchers believe generate this blood lowering effect. (If you don’t yet have a juicing machine I recommend the Jack Lalanne Power Juicer Review)