Find out how fruit and veg could make cuter.
Best
incentive yet for improving your diet: How fruit and veg could make you cuter
If the fact that they’re nutritious isn’t
enough to get you eating more fruit and vegetables, here’s some news that may
convince you – they make you look good too.
People who increased their intake were
rated more attractive after just six weeks, researchers found.
Scientists at St Andrews University
monitored the food consumption of 35 people and took pictures of them over this
period.
Before and after: A study has found that eating a diet of fruit and vegetables can lead to a person having a healthy glow and appearing more attractive in just six weeks
Eating an average of 2.9 more portions of
fruit and vegetables a day made them look healthier when rated by others at the
end of the study, while an extra 3.3 portions enhanced their attractiveness.
Fruit and vegetables are rich in
carotenoids, which protect against cell damage from pollution and UV rays and
can prevent age-related diseases including heart disease and cancer.
Best incentive yet for improving your diet:
How fruit and veg could make you cuter
By TAMARA COHEN
Last updated at 1:08 PM on 8th March 2012
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If the fact that they’re nutritious isn’t
enough to get you eating more fruit and vegetables, here’s some news that may
convince you – they make you look good too.
People who increased their intake were
rated more attractive after just six weeks, researchers found.
Scientists at St Andrews University
monitored the food consumption of 35 people and took pictures of them over this
period.
Before and after: A study has found that
eating a diet of fruit and vegetables can lead to a person having a healthy
glow and appearing more attractive in just six weeks
Eating an average of 2.9 more portions of
fruit and vegetables a day made them look healthier when rated by others at the
end of the study, while an extra 3.3 portions enhanced their attractiveness.
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Fruit and vegetables are rich in
carotenoids, which protect against cell damage from pollution and UV rays and
can prevent age-related diseases including heart disease and cancer.
Sowing the seeds of love: Eating fruit
makes you look sexier, so tuck in, say scientists
It was already known that eating extreme
amounts of certain vegetables such as
carrots could turn skin orange. However, it was not known that a small increase in these red and yellow pigments in the
skin could be perceptible to others – or
that it was seen as appealing.
A camera which can measure close-up changes
to the skin’s redness, yellowness and lightness found that these significantly
increased in people who increased their intake of fruit and vegetables.
Using light sensors, the researchers showed
these red and yellow hues were linked with the levels of carotenoids in the
skin.
There are hundreds of different types of
carotenoids.
But those thought to have the most dramatic
impact on the skin are lycopene – which gives tomatoes and red peppers their
red colour – and beta-carotene, found in carrots as well as broccoli, squash,
and spinach.
Skin colour can also be affected by
chemicals called polyphenols, found in apples, blueberries and cherries, which
cause blood rush to the skin surface.
Ross Whitehead, who lead the study
published in the journal PLoS ONE, said: ‘We expected the colour change to be
most dramatic in people who ate very few fruit and vegetables to start off
with, but it was actually across the board.
‘A lot of the people were already eating
close to the recommended amount.
‘But we found even a couple of extra portions could still make a difference to
their skin colour.’
He said the team, who studied white and
Asian volunteers, would look at whether this was also true for other races, and
whether it had a smaller or greater effect in older people, as the volunteers
were all aged 18 to 25.
