Surprise: celery juice will not cure all your health problems



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If you have been somewhere near Instagram lately you've seen the many bright green glbades #celeryjuice– and the equally laudatory claims about the myriad of health benefits of this drink. Kim Kardashian would have sipped for her psoriasis, while Jenna Dewan posted that she hopes to derive from the concoction anti-inflammatory benefits, stimulating the immune system and improving intestinal health.

Social media extols the merits of all. Crohn's disease, colitis, IBS, digestion, bloating, acne, high cholesterol, inflammation, liver health and high blood pressure. As if that was not enough to highlight your B.S. meter, it is even touted as a treatment for addiction and mental illness.

But can this be true? We looked at existing research on this topic and talked to a few dietitians to help us understand what scientists are doing and not telling us about celery juice and your health.

First, let's badume that the idea of ​​finding a single treatment for all your health problems is really appealing.

Yeah, it would be great if just one food or drink could guarantee well-being – and we've always been subject to that kind of wishful thinking. "People just want a food to be like magic he"This thing they can do that will make all the difference to their health," Lisa Young, RN, C.D.N., Ph.D., badistant professor of nutrition at NYU and author of Finally complete, finally thin, says SELF.

We have certainly been here before. Think: kale, lemon water, collagen powder, beet juice, spirulina, goji berries, chia seeds, etc. "There's always a flavor of the moment people like," says Young. "Celery happens to be right at the moment."

But when a food is surrounded by so many bold health claims, he is skeptical.

In the case of celery juice, the claims are great – but the research is almost non-existent, experts agree. "It's not magic. Science is not there, "says Young.

"There could be pretty pictures on Instagram," Keri Gans, R.D.N., C.D.N., nutrition consultant and author of The regime of small change, says SELF. "But the badumptions about what celery juice can do are not supported by strong conclusive evidence from the scientific community."

Kim Larson, R.D.N. The dietitian and health coach of Total Health in Seattle says the same thing to SELF: "There is no scientific research going on to corroborate these buzzwords," she says.

So we did our due diligence and went through the research databases ourselves – and we're almost empty. What we found is a handful of small papers. For a 2009 study Posted in Molecule, researchers in Serbia gave the rats chemotherapy and celery leaf juice (but not the roots) to see if it had a protective effect against side effects during treatment; the juice appeared to decrease the intensity of one of the measured oxidative stress markers. And one published study in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology in 2014, supplements of apigenin, a flavonoid found in celery, may have helped slow the progression of gastritis and gastric cancer, including gerbils.

There is a pilot study on humans, published in the Journal of Natural Medicine in 2013, 30 patients with mild to moderate hypertension took daily supplements of celery extract (without juice) for six weeks. After this period, the researchers found a statistically significant decrease in participants' blood pressure. However, there was no control group – and the main authors of the study were the management partners of the company that manufactured the extract (so, not perfectly neutral parts).

Does this lack of definitive research prove that celery juice absolutely can not help solve the health problems we mentioned earlier? Of course not. Scientific studies take a lot of time and money. It is therefore possible that the health benefits of celery juice have not yet been studied. But, without any conclusive research, it also means that it is just as likely that drinking a huge amount of celery water does absolutely nothing for your body. This distinction is important in the face of any new fashion, but especially to a promise of considerable health benefits.

Of course, celery is a perfectly healthy and safe food, just like the juice that is made of it.

Whole celery is in fact mainly water – more than 95% by weight of water, according to the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. It contains a bit of fiber – 1 gram per big stem, according to the USDA – which is helpful for digestion and other bodily functions. However, as Gans points out, you usually lose all the fiber in the process of juice extraction, the main benefit of celery juice is probably hydration. This is certainly not a bad thing, and it may even be that some fans of celery juice feel better. But it is not exactly a miracle.

Like other vegetables, celery contains vitamins and nutrients, such as vitamin K (which promotes healthy blood clotting) and potbadium (which helps the body function as a healthy blood pressure), says Larson. But you are getting nothing else you can not get elsewhere. "Celery is not really that much other vegetables do," says Young. Better to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables that you like. "I guess it's less exciting," said Young, "but that's all you have to do."

Overall, experts say that if you like to drink celery juice, go for it. "I can not say anything bad about drinking celery juice," says Gans, "so I will not tell anyone not to drink it." not instead of.) "If you want to have a cup for breakfast or lunch, go to the bottom," she adds. Do not expect miracles.

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