Cucumber, the Best Food to Promote Heart Health

By Kyle J. Norton

The heart formed part of the circulatory system is a muscular organ that pumps blood through the blood vessels to nourish the body tissues and organs.

Most cases of heart dysfunction are associated with the reduced function of the heart muscle, leading to reduce blood flow that facilitates heart failure and the backup of blood into the lungs or rest of the body.

According to the statistics provided by the US government, heart disease is a leading cause of death in the US. Over 600,000 died of heart disease, every year including 370,000 people died of coronary heart disease (CHD), accounting to 1 in 4 deaths.

Most common symptoms of heart disease are poor appetite, weight loss, shortness of breath,  sudden collapse, blood clots and stunted growth found in children.

If you have experienced some of the aforementioned symptoms, please check with your doctor to rule the risk of heart disease.

By following a healthy dietary intake, physical activity, weight management, smoking cessation, blood pressure control, and lipid management, most cases of heart disease are preventable.

Dr. Melanie Warziski Turk, in the evaluation of the risk of heart disease in women, wrote, "Because heart disease is frequently preventable, increasing awareness of personal risk and preventative measures is a key element of healthcare for women".

And, "Nurse clinicians can evaluate, educate, and counsel women regarding their risk for this pervasive disease and promote behavior changes that will decrease that risk. Research evidence supports that lifestyle behaviors are the cornerstone of heart disease prevention".

The cucumber plant is a species of Cucumis Sativus, belongings to the family Cucurbitaceae and native to Western Asia. It is a creeping vine with roots in the ground and grows up with the support of frames.

With an aim to find a natural compound for the improvement of heart health, researchers investigated the therapeutic impact of cucurbitacin I on the heart.

According to the tested assay, phenylephrine (PE)-induced muscle cell enlargement and cardiac hypertrophy was inhibited by the pretreatment of the cardiomyocytes with cucurbitacin I.

Furthermore, cucurbitacin I protect the heart connective tissues against the onset of cardiac fibrosis.

More importantly, cucurbitacin I also significantly expressed the heart muscle protective effect by inhibiting the factors associated with the increase of blood pressure.

In order to reveal more information about cucumber anti-cardiac hypertrophy, a leading cause of heart failure, researchers evaluated cucurbitacin B anti-hypertrophy and anti-fibrosis potential both in vitro and in vivo.

Selected mice induced cardiac hypertrophy after 1 week of surgery, were given cucurbitacin B treatment for 4 weeks.

At the end of the experiment, cucurbitacin B demonstrated a strong anti- hypertrophy and anti-fibrosis ability evidenced by decreased heart weight, myocardial cell cross-sectional area, and interstitial fibrosis.

Additionally, the levels of heart systolic and diastolic abnormalities induced by the surgery was also moralized by the application of cucurbitacin B.

Furthermore, gene expressions induced hypertrophic and fibrotic markers, reserved microvascular density in pressure overload-induced hypertrophic mice were also normalized by the injection cucurbitacin B.

Taken altogether, cucumber and its bioactive compound cucurbitacin I and B (CuB) may be used for the improvement of heart health, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of CuB in the form of supplement should be taken with extreme care to prevent overdose acute liver toxicity.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Cucurbitacin I Attenuates Cardiomyocyte Hypertrophy via Inhibition of Connective Tissue Growth Factor (CCN2) and TGF- β/Smads Signalings by Moon Hee Jeong,# 1 Shang-Jin Kim,# 2 Hara Kang, 3 Kye Won Park, 4 Woo Jin Park, 1Seung Yul Yang, 5 and Dong Kwon Yang. (PMC)
(2) Cucurbitacin B Protects Against Pressure Overload Induced Cardiac Hypertrophy by Yang Xiao, Zheng Yang, Qing-Qing Wu and Xiao-Han Jiang. (Research Gate)
(3) Cardiac Health: Primary Prevention of Heart Disease in Women by Melanie Warziski Turk, PhD, MSN, RN,a Patricia K. Tuite, MSN, RN,b and Lora E. Burke, PhD, MPH, FAHA, FAAN. (PMC)