In an age of transoceanic travel and rare medical advances, sailors feared scurvy, the disease that affected them most. Today we know that scurvy is nothing more than a deficiency of vitamin C in our body and that eating an orange a day is enough to cure it.
We wanted to show you all the benefits that eating an orange a day can bring to your body so you can stay healthy.
It aids with gut health.
According to some studies, daily consumption of oranges can have a positive effect on our intestinal microbiota. It also causes a drop in glucose, insulin sensitivity, and LDL (bad cholesterol).
Orange juice acts as a prebiotic and promotes the growth of intestinal bacteria, which is important for our health.
It can help you on your weight loss journey.
To achieve our weight loss goals, we must exercise and eat a balanced diet, which means getting all the nutrients our bodies need to function properly. Fortunately for us, oranges are very rich in essential nutrients; eating just one orange a day, we can cover some of them.
A medium-sized orange provides the body with only 60 calories. The fruit also has 3 grams of fiber, which provides benefits like better gut health, good cholesterol, and a lower risk of heart disease, as well as slowing the way our bodies absorb sugar.
Fiber can also help us feel full for long periods of time. Having a diet rich in it can help reduce our cravings and our calorie intake, resulting in weight loss. When eating an orange, be sure to consume not only the juice but also the pulp of the orange, as this is where most of the fiber is found.
It assists your body in the creation of collagen.
An orange provides about 70 milligrams of vitamin C. This vital nutrient also has incredible benefits, including improving iron absorption, fighting inflammation, and lowering blood pressure, as well as helping to form collagen in our bones.
Collagen is a protein that our body produces. Provides structural support to tissues and helps with important processes such as tissue repair and immune response. As we age, our collagen production slows down and our elastin is lost, leading to aging and our skin looking saggy and dry.
It is not possible to completely stop collagen loss because it is part of aging, but we can try to slow down the process, and eating an orange a day can make a difference.
It can be useful to maintain good eyesight.
Researchers say that if you eat an orange a day, you’re more likely to have a 60 percent lower risk of developing macular degeneration, an eye disease that can cloud your central vision to the point that even glasses won’t help to see. This condition can form due to the natural aging process.
Vitamin C is very important for our eyesight as it contributes to healthy blood vessels in our eyes and can help fight cataracts. If we want to have a good vision of the future, it might be a good idea to start analyzing our daily intake of vitamin C.
Some symptoms of scurvy or vitamin C deficiency
Scurvy is a very rare condition since most of us get enough vitamin C from our daily diet, but it has happened before. Vitamin C helps our body produce collagen, and if not enough collagen is produced in our body, the tissue begins to break down.
Some of the symptoms of scurvy are fatigue, lethargy, anemia, gum disease, tooth loss, poor wound healing, depression, swelling, and bone pain.
Which benefit surprised you the most? Have you ever tried eating an orange peel? Would you try it? Please tell us in the comments.
Preview photo credit Usty / Shutterstock.com, Usty / Shutterstock.com
