Crunchy celery isn’t the most obvious superfood vegetable, but it’s actually surprisingly good for you. These celery health benefits are further magnified when you juice it and can receive a much larger dose of its powerful nutrients. This article covers why celery juice is so good for preventing inflammation and disease, protecting your cardiovascular system, lowering your risk of cancer, cleansing your body, improving your skin, recovering from exercise of stress and even helping you get to sleep at night.
The Top 7 Reasons to Juice Celery
1. Reduce Inflammation in Your Body
Inflammatory diseases like arthritis, osteoporosis, gout and even asthma can respond very well to regular celery juice in your diet. This may be in large part due to two special compounds called luteolin and polyacetylenes, both present in large amounts in celery.Luteolin is a antioxidant flavonoid with strong anti-inflammatory properties. It has been shown in scientific studies to have a powerful inhibitory effect on certain enzymes which activate genes responsible for the inflammation response.
Polyacetylenes also reduces inflammation by lowering levels of inflammatory prostaglandins in your body. Arthritis sufferers in particular are believed to benefit from high food sources of polyacetylenes. Raw celery juice is a great source, as is carrot juice and related vegetables like parsnip, parsley and fennel.
2. Lower Blood Pressure and Improved Cardiovascular Health
Another interesting nutrient in celery juice called phthalide relaxes smooth muscles inside your blood vessels, thus helping to reduce high blood pressure. The phthalide in celery is also believed to help lower LDL cholesterol for better heart health.Coumarins, found in high levels in freshly juiced celery help reduce the effect of stress hormones like cortisol in your body. Too much cortisol tends to constrict blood vessels, potentially leading to hypertension and putting strain on your whole circulatory system.
Celery also contains a bioflavonoid called apigenin that acts as an anti-inflammatory within your cardiovascular system and promotes blood vessel expansion, thereby lessening high blood pressure and hypertension.
3. Celery juice as a Cancer Fighter
Full of powerful antioxidants and anti-cancer compounds like flavonols, phenolic acids and furanocoumarins, celery juice has a lot of potential as a cancer fighter.Two substances in particular found in celery are being studied as a cancer treatment. The flavonoids apigenin and luteolin have been shown to help prevent the spread of cancer inscientific studies like this.
While research on individual compounds is interesting, it’s far better to see celery juice’s cancer preventing potential for its broad range of anti-carcinogenic antioxidants and other beneficial substances. Isolates are useful for drug manufacturers, but the nutrients in natural foods work best in synergy with each other.
4. Cleansing and Detoxifying
Celery juice is a great internal cleanser and detoxifier for your body. Highly alkalizing and hydrating, many nutrients in freshly juiced celery are particularly cleansing for your kidneys.Raw juice recipes containing celery as essential ingredient are even recommended for treatingkidney stones. They can also be a powerful diuretic for removing excess water weight from your body and flushing out toxins more effectively.
5. Skin Benefits of Celery Juice
Celery contains a wide range of nutritional elements for enhancing your skin. Aside from all of the various antioxidants already mentioned, it is high in vitamin K for preserving skin’s firmnessand elastic quality and has vitamin C, vitamin A and B vitamins for healthy skin tone.6. Recovery Juice
After exercise or even a busy and stressful day, your body is often dehydrated and low in important electrolytes that keep it functioning correctly.Celery juice, soon after a workout or when you get home from the office, can be especially replenishing and hydrating. It contains high levels of natural sodium and potassium electrolytes that play their part in keeping the energy connections in your cells working smoothly.
7. Sleep Enhancer
The aforementioned celery juice benefits for high blood pressure, reducing hypertension and lowering stress hormones, alongside its high levels of electrolytes are probably a big part of why it is often suggested for enhancing relaxation and sleep.Celery juice also contains magnesium, known as the calming mineral. Magnesium deficiency can lead to many health problems, including difficulty relaxing and getting to sleep so make sure you get enough of it.
Choosing Celery and How to Juice It
Look for celery for juicing with green leaves and firm stalks. The darker the green in the stalk, the stronger the celery flavor and likely the more nutrition available within the vegetable itself.Celery juice is tasty and refreshing and particularly good for your overall health.