Here’s What Eating 3 Dates a Day Can Do to Your Liver, Heart, and Arteries

Dates are an often overlooked fruit in most Western cultures. We pay a lot of attention to healthy fruits like oranges, apples, and lemons, but dates are also among the most valuable natural foods in terms of health benefits.

Indeed, advocates of natural remedies claim that dates can help many of your body’s functions run more smoothly. Here are a few examples of how eating dates regularly could make your life a little sweeter:

1. Give Your Liver a Helping Hand
   Dates—and date seed extract—may help reduce liver fibrosis, which occurs when the liver improperly repairs itself after processing toxins, leading to excess collagen. Dates can help you build a healthier organ that will recover better from daily wear and tear.
2. Keep Your Heart Working
   Dates are great for your heart: They can help monitor your heart rate thanks to potassium, which is great for fighting heart disease. Not only that, but dates can lower LDL cholesterol — the harmful variety of the molecule.
3. Get Rid of Arterial Clogging
   Dates are also great for keeping atherosclerosis at bay. The disease is characterized by plaque forming in your arteries, which not only makes them thinner, but also poses the risk of these plaques breaking off and creating clots, which can often be deadly.

The high amounts of antioxidants and phenolic acids in dates can help reduce arterial clogging and the problems that come with it.

4. See No Evil
   Dates are rich in vitamin A, which will help protect your corneas from all sorts of damage. They are also rich in lutein and zeaxanthin, two little-known nutrients that help your eyes filter out harmful light exposure and prevent macular degeneration, which causes vision loss.
5. Add a Spring to Your Step
   Try combining dates with almonds or cashews for a delicious and energetic snack. This is due to the natural sugar in dates that will give you a nice energy boost. Not only that, but the vitamins and potassium they contain help promote brain activity and nervous system responsiveness, which can prevent your body from slowing down as you age.
6. May Promote Brain Health
   Recent studies have found that dates may have health-promoting properties that can help slow the development of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Dates do this by reducing inflammatory markers, such as interleukin-6 in the brain.