7 Reasons You Should Eat More Spinach

7 Reasons You Should Eat More Spinach

By Health Cleveland Clinic

May 22, 2026

Source

It’s been more than 60 years since the cartoon hero Popeye debuted. Since then, the beloved sailor’s favorite dish — spinach — has gained a lot of fans. The average American today eats about 1.5 pounds of this leafy green vegetable every year.

“Spinach is one of the most nutritious foods you can eat,” says registered dietitian Kayla Kopp, RD, LD. “It’s also very easy to use. Raw or cooked, spinach is great in salads, appetizers, smoothies and main dishes.”

Is spinach good for you?

Yes! Spinach is a nutritional powerhouse. It’s low in calories but high in vitamins, nutrients and filling fiber — making it a superfood. Plus, this earthy, leafy green is more flavorful than lettuce but less bitter than kale.

Spinach health benefits

Kopp shares seven reasons to eat more spinach.

1. Offers a low-calorie, low-fat source of nutrients

Two-thirds of a cup (100 grams) of raw spinach has 23 calories, 3.6 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of protein and zero cholesterol or fat. Nutrient-wise, a serving has approximately:

• 483 micrograms of vitamin K (402% of daily value).
• 469 micrograms of vitamin A (52% of DV).
• 194 micrograms of folate (49% of DV).
• 0.9 milligrams of manganese (39% of DV).
• 28 milligrams of vitamin C (31% of DV).
• 79 milligrams of magnesium (19% of DV).
• 0.19 milligrams of riboflavin (15% of DV).
• 2.7 milligrams of iron (15% of DV).
• 2 milligrams of vitamin E (14% of DV).
• 0.13 milligrams of copper (14% DV).
• 558 milligrams of potassium (12% of DV).
• 0.2 milligrams of vitamin B6 (11% of DV).

2. Protects against diseases

Spinach has a variety of antioxidants, including carotenoids like beta-carotene and lutein.

These natural chemicals (phytochemicals) protect plants — and you — from bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses. “Antioxidants minimize the damaging effects of free radicals,” says Kopp.

These molecules can build up in your body, causing cell damage that leads to chronic conditions like cancer, autoimmune diseases and Alzheimer’s disease. And if you have diabetes, the antioxidant alpha-lipoic acid in spinach may keep glucose levels low and improve how you respond to insulin.

3. Lowers blood pressure

The high potassium levels in spinach (two-thirds of a cup has close to 600 milligrams) relaxes blood vessels and lowers blood pressure. “Potassium also helps your kidneys get rid of extra sodium,” says Kopp. “High blood pressure and excess sodium can lead to heart disease, stroke and kidney damage.”

Spinach is high in magnesium and folate, a B vitamin. These nutrients help you make nitric oxide, a molecule that lowers blood pressure. Spinach also has nitrates, chemicals that expand blood vessels. One study found that participants who drank a spinach beverage had lower blood pressure for up to five hours after finishing the drink.

4. Boosts brain health

Spinach can keep your mind sharp. One study found that eating a half-cup serving of cooked spinach or other leafy greens every day slows age-related memory changes. The high levels of antioxidants, folate and phylloquinone (a form of vitamin K found in leafy greens) help protect brain cells.

The nutrients may also lower your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. They stop proteins from building up in your brain and lessen inflammation.

5. Improves gut health

Two-thirds of a cup of raw spinach has close to 2 grams of insoluble fiber. “Your body can’t easily break down this type of fiber, so you feel full longer,” notes Kopp. Fiber also adds bulk to stools, helping prevent constipation.

6. Supports healthy blood

Spinach is rich in non-heme (plant-based) iron, making it an excellent choice if you follow a vegetarian or vegan meal plan. Iron helps your body make hemoglobin, a red blood cell protein that carries oxygen to organs and tissues. “Eating an iron-rich diet that includes spinach can help prevent iron-deficiency anemia and symptoms like fatigue,” adds Kopp.

Unfortunately, you don’t absorb non-heme iron from plant-based diets as well as you absorb heme iron from animal sources like beef, liver and chicken. That’s because certain compounds in spinach, like polyphenols and oxalic acid (oxalates), can attach to iron, affecting how much your body absorbs. “Oxalate is known as an ‘anti-nutrient’ because it decreases the amount of iron, magnesium and other minerals you take in from plant foods,” says Kopp.

Combining foods high in vitamin C with foods high in iron, like spinach, can maximize non-heme iron absorption. “Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) binds with iron, making it easier for your body to absorb both nutrients,” explains Kopp, who offers these food pairing suggestions:

• Cook spinach and potatoes together.
• Fix a smoothie with spinach, berries, citrus fruits and water. (Avoid using milk or milk alternatives, as calcium may affect iron absorption.)
• Make a spinach-walnut salad with raspberry vinaigrette.

7. Protects eyesight

Lutein and another antioxidant called zeaxanthin in spinach are related to vitamin A and beta-carotene found in carrots. These antioxidants help protect your eyes against sun damage. They may also lower your risk of eye disorders, such as age-related cataracts.

One small study found that eating a half-cup of frozen spinach every day for two months increases lutein levels and eye pigment. High pigment levels may lower your risk of macular degeneration.

Because vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, you’ll absorb more antioxidants if you have a healthy fat with your spinach. Kopp suggests eating fresh or cooked spinach with:

• Avocados.
• Drizzle of olive oil.
• Fatty fish like salmon.
• Nuts.
• Seeds.

Is spinach better raw or cooked?

“Spinach is good for you, whether you eat it fresh or cooked,” says Kopp.

Cooked spinach provides more:

• Calcium.
• Vitamin A.
• Carotenoids.
• Fiber.
• Iron.
• Protein.
• Zinc.

Raw spinach provides more:

• Folate.
• Lutein.
• Vitamin C.

How much spinach should you eat?

“A cup of spinach counts toward the recommended two to three cups of vegetables adults should eat every day,” says Kopp. But people with certain conditions may want to opt for other leafy greens:

• If you’re prone to kidney stones, the high oxalate content of spinach may cause more stones to form.
• An inconsistent intake of vitamin K (which helps clot blood) can be a problem if you take blood thinners to prevent blood clots.

For most people, spinach is a colorful, healthy addition to a variety of dishes.

Health Cleveland Clinic

Compiled by http://violetflame.biz.ly from: 

• https://eraoflight.com/2026/05/21/7-reasons-you-should-eat-more-spinach/

Fluoride Study Claiming No Effect on IQ Has ‘Basically No Connection to Reality,’ Critics Say

Fluoride Study Claiming No Effect on IQ Has ‘Basically No Connection to Reality,’ Critics Say

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

Post on May 15, 2025

Source

Mainstream media are widely promoting a study claiming that community water fluoridation has no effect on IQ, but critics told The Defender the study contains fundamental methodological errors that invalidate the authors’ conclusions. The Defender asked to be included in a media call with the study’s author, but was denied access.

Experts who analyzed a recent study claiming that fluoride exposure from drinking water doesn’t affect IQ told The Defender the study was deceptive and relied on a flawed methodology.

The “highly anticipated long-term study,” published April 13 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was widely cited by media and proponents of water fluoridation as evidence that there is no difference in IQ between people who drank water containing fluoride at the level currently recommended by U.S. public health agencies and people who didn’t.

But Chris Neurath — a research director for the American Environmental Health Studies Project who analyzed the study — identified flaws in the data used for the study and the authors’ conclusions.

Neurath said that one of the “most deceptive parts” of both the media coverage and the study itself was the claim that it studied community water fluoridation, and that it was a comparison between two groups — people exposed to fluoridation and people who weren’t.

Neurath found that the authors didn’t actually measure how much fluoride study participants consumed.

They also didn’t study people who were exposed to fluoride as neonates or young children — the very groups that research shows are most affected by fluoride exposure.

For example, the researchers used data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, which tracked about 10,000 people in the 1957 Wisconsin high school graduating class. Participants took IQ tests in high school and cognitive tests later in life — at ages 53, 64, 72 and 80.

That means the study participants were born in about 1939 — six years before community water fluoridation began anywhere in the U.S.

Given that community water fluoridation didn’t even exist when the study participants were born, no one in the study was exposed to it during the critical developmental years when it can affect IQ — and few people were exposed to fluoridated water at all.

Attorney Michael Connett, who represents plaintiffs in the landmark lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that put concerns about water fluoridation on the national radar, criticized the study in a post on X.

He wrote:

“The study’s use of a clearly erroneous measurement of early life exposure to fluoridated water made it virtually impossible for this study to detect an association between early-life fluoride exposure and IQ.

“It’s like trying to determine if prenatal exposure to Tylenol is associated with autism by determining the Tylenol use of the child’s neighbor rather than the child’s mother.”

‘Very faulty’ exposure method ‘invalidates the entire study’

Neurath and Connett also criticized the PNAS study’s choice of wells to estimate fluoride exposure.

The researchers assumed that if a Wisconsin county had a single well found to have naturally elevated levels of fluoride at the currently recommended 0.7 milligrams per liter (mg/L), then everyone in the county was exposed to that level of fluoride.

Connett said that assumption, at the heart of the study, “has basically no connection to reality” because fluoride levels in a single well can’t provide information about fluoride in other wells, “let alone ‘all’ wells.”

The researchers identified the wells using U.S. Geological Survey data collected between 1988 and 2017, which contained information on about two wells per county in Wisconsin.

Neurath compared the data used by the study authors to data on more detailed studies on well fluoridation from the state of Wisconsin — data that the authors of the PNAS study didn’t use.

He found that most of the counties included in the new study had only one well containing fluoride at 0.7 mg/L, and that some had up to 30 wells with levels measuring well below that threshold.

In one example from Sheboygan County, Neurath found that the single well identified as containing fluoride wasn’t even a drinking water well — it was a “monitoring well” next to an agricultural field. All other wells tested in the county had fluoride levels ranging from 0 to 0.2 mg/L.

Neurath said that most Wisconsin residents weren’t even getting water from private wells — they relied on public water systems. At the time, about 3% of public water systems had naturally high levels of fluoride.

He concluded that the study used “a very faulty exposure measure,” which he said, “invalidates the entire study.”

Lead author denies Defender access to reporter call, deflects scrutiny

Researchers from the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigan conducted the PNAS study.

Lead author Rob Warren, Ph.D., was scheduled to speak with reporters on Tuesday in 15-minute slots to promote the study. The Defender signed up but was denied access. At least one local news station interviewed Warren that day.

Warren, a sociologist, told reporter Connor Rhiel that concerns about fluoride and IQ typically draw on research from small communities in Iran and China with abnormally high fluoride levels for “weird geological reasons” — and weren’t relevant to U.S. policy.

He said his team chose their approach because large cohort studies tracking fluoride exposure and cognitive outcomes over time are “relatively rare” and difficult to conduct.

He did not mention the major North American cohort studies — published in top journals and most often cited by fluoride critics — already conducted in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, which identified the link.

Warren said his research shows that children drinking optimally fluoridated water have nothing to fear for their cognition or IQ.

In a similar paper published last year — which critics also flagged for lacking any measure of fluoride exposure during gestation or infancy — he went further, claiming fluoride provided a cognitive benefit, a claim that drew sharp criticism.

When the local reporter asked whether this study found any benefits from fluoride exposure, Warren didn’t mention them. Instead, he offered general remarks that fluoride is good for teeth.

The Defender submitted its intended interview questions to Warren via email Tuesday, asking him to explain and justify the study’s assumptions about fluoride exposure.

Warren had not responded as of press time today.

Brenda Baletti

• https://childrenshealthdefense.org/

Lower Blood Pressure under 10 Minutes (3 Proven Approaches)

Lower Blood Pressure under 10 Minutes (3 Proven Approaches)

By ZHealth

Post on May 6, 2026

Blood pressure problems? I have some ideas for you. If you’re a movement professional, one of the most important things that you can do is to keep people healthy over time. And if we look at the morbidity, mortality statistics around the world, we know that hypertension plays a huge role in all vascular diseases. So people with high blood pressure are at increased cardiovascular risk. They are at increased risk for retinal issues. They are at increased risk for kidney problems. And the list just goes on and on and on. So hypertension by itself is a disease, but it can make everything worse.

Now, here’s what your doctor often won’t tell you, maybe because they don’t even know it. The fact is that small changes in blood pressure can equate to huge reductions in risk. In fact, the research looks like this.

So let’s make sure we understand a couple of things. Your top number is your systolic blood pressure. Your bottom number is diastolic. So in most cases, what we’re looking at is trying to lower the systolic number, the big number at the top. What is now currently showing up in the research literature is this. If we can lower that top number by five points, five millimeters of mercury, that’s the official designation, that typically equates to a 10% reduction in overall risk. So if I can lower it by five points, you’re 10% less likely to potentially have a stroke or to potentially have cardiovascular problems. If I can lower it by 10 points, I’m now going up to 20% reduction. So you can just do simple math. So small changes have huge results.

So how do we go after this from a drug-free exercise-based perspective? I’m holding these things, I’ll explain in just a minute. But most people, whenever they are thinking about reducing blood pressure through movement, our default narrative is you need to do more cardiovascular exercise. Get on an exercise bike, get on a rowing machine, take walks every day, go for a run. And there is ample evidence that cardiovascular exercise and strength training both can reduce blood pressure, but that requires a pretty significant time investment. And for some people, because they have other issues like pain and inner ear problems and eye problems, it actually is impossible for them to do enough high quality cardiovascular exercise or very difficult to the point that they don’t do it. So while those are great tools, we’re always looking for something that may be more effective. And what I’m going to talk with you about today are the three things that we’re seeing in the research literature that can promote really significant drops in those systolic numbers.

Now, before I go into that, if you are a movement professional specifically interested in bridging the gap between biomechanics and neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, please contact us. Go to the pinned comment, drop us a DM on Instagram, drop us an email, because we’d love to share our approach with bringing brain-based training into what it is that you do.

Now, to get back to this, I’m not going to go into the neurology behind it right now, but I’m going to talk to you about the three approaches that we’re seeing in the literature that are profoundly effective in reducing that big systolic number.

The first we’re going to talk about is inspiratory muscle strength training. The reason I’m starting with this one is this is currently the biggest winner. Inspiratory muscle strength training does require a device. Now, this device that I am using, this is called the Breather. There are other ones that are out there. What I like about it is it’s going to allow me to use this dial to decide how much resistance I want when I am breathing through it. So I’m going to inhale. I’m right now on a number two. It goes up to a number five. Now, the reason this is important is that the protocols that have shown to drop that big systolic number by up to 15 points over eight weeks is inspiratory muscle strength training, but it has to be done at a high enough intensity.

So when we look at the protocols, the basic protocol is this. You’re going to start off. You’re going to get a breather or you’re going to get some kind of other inspiratory muscle strength training device. You’re going to test yourself. You’re trying to figure out what is 55 to 75% of the most difficult inhale that you can perform. So I’m going to grab this. I’m going to have it on a two. I think, okay, that’s pretty comfortable. I go to a three. That’s getting harder. I go to a four. That’s much harder. So for me right now, as I’m standing here, I would think probably a three is about 75% of what I’m able to do as far as my maximal inhalation.

Now, once I have that number, and again, if that’s too hard for you, you can go lower because you are now going to do 30 inhalations in a row, right? You’ll breathe in nice and hard and fast. Ideally within one to two seconds, and then you do a comfortable exhale. And then you do that again, but it’s 30 breaths at around 55 to 75% intensity. And you do that five to seven days a week. Now, when you do that five to seven days a week, over the next four, six and eight weeks, you’re going to see your systolic numbers dropping and dropping and dropping, unless you have something else going on.

Again, right now, from a drug-free perspective, this seems to outperform everything else that we know. Cardiovascular exercise, everything else I’m going to go through. So I did not want to start with anything, but the number one winner right now in the current reviews. Number two, we’re going to go to isometric exercise. For years, actually since around 1985, we’ve been talking about using hand grip exercises to lower blood pressure. What happens is whenever I do a hand grip exercise and I hold a contraction for a prolonged period of time, I actually raise my blood pressure. And as I’m raising my blood pressure and I’m causing a congestion in this arm, the working side, what happens is that’s triggering off what are called baroreflexes within the body. And these are monitoring our blood pressure.

So when our blood pressure goes up because I’m doing this, that’s then going to talk to my brainstem. It’s going to say, hey, blood pressure is going up, let’s lower it. So then as soon as I release this, all of a sudden blood vessels are going to dilate and my blood pressure will drop. If I do that enough, I change the brain through plasticity to lower blood pressure. So what we have seen consistently in the research literature is that we can use isometric exercises, either hand grip or like wall sits where I’m doing isometric exercises for prolonged periods sitting against a wall. We can lower that top number by around nine points over four to six weeks.

So if I was going to do this with a hand gripper, you need to be gripping around 30% of your maximum. So I have this set right now, so I can start off with a test and I can just give it a quick squeeze. And I hit about 120. So I would do 30% of 120. So I need to now reset this and I’m going to try and hold it at around 36 pounds. Now, once I get it to that 36 pounds, I’m going hold for two minutes. And after two minutes, I’m going to relax for two minutes. And I’m going to do it again for two more minutes. And then I’m going to switch hands and I’ll do two more rounds over here. So I’m going to do a total of four, two minute holds. And I like to do two on my right hand, two on my left hand. You’re going to do that three times a week.

So the breathing every day, isometrics three times a week. If we do the three times a week, all of a sudden again, over four to six weeks, we’re going to start to see that systolic number come down. And some studies show it coming down in week one.

So we now have our two kind of favorite approaches where we can use the inspiratory muscle strength training, or we can use isometric exercises. The last thing is equipment free. All you have to do is breathe, but breathe in a specific way.

Whenever we’re looking to lower blood pressure and calm the body, we want to focus on six breaths per minute, right? That’s a slow breathing rate. It’s called slow pace breathing. And when you do slow pace breathing, you want to emphasize the exhale.

So what we have seen in the literature is this. If I practice 10 minutes per day of slow pace breathing, aiming for six breaths per minute, I can lower that top number between three and five points. So it’s the least effective because it’s not as intense as either the muscle strength training or the isometrics, but it still works. And it has the additive benefit of relaxing you throughout the day. So the way that we teach people to do this is you inhale through your nose for two seconds, you hold for two seconds, and then you exhale either through your nose or through your mouth for six seconds. You put it on a timer and you do that for 10 minutes. At the end of that, you’re going to feel much more relaxed. And if you take your blood pressure before and after, you probably are going to see it drop. Over time, we’re retraining your nervous system to say, hey, we don’t have to maintain this high level of blood pressure all the time. We can relax a little bit.

So there you have it. You have three tools. Now what we do, because we are brain-based practitioners, if someone really needs a lot of blood pressure control is we stack them together. They’re doing this every day. They’re doing the slow pace breathing every day. And they’re doing isometrics three times a week. And we have seen ridiculous improvements in blood pressure in a lot of our clients that do this.

So one big caveat here is as you begin applying all this, make sure this is done in conjunction with your client’s healthcare providers who are currently dealing with any hypertension issues that they have. Because if you really start lowering their blood pressure and they’re on medication, guess what? Medication dosages may need to be modified as they improve. So don’t forget that. It’s super important both for you and ethically for your client. All right?

So if again, you’re interested in brain-based training and bridging the gap between what you’re currently doing with biomechanics or kind of traditional approaches, you’d like to know more about how to blend neuroscience and what you do, make sure to contact us because we’d love to share it with you. And if you just want a lot of free info, subscribe to the channel. We look forward to talking with you again soon.

By ZHealth | Source

Compiled by http://violetflame.biz.ly from: 

• https://eraoflight.com/2026/05/05/lower-blood-pressure-under-10-minutes-3-proven-approaches/