Help yourselves to more servings of fruits and veggies to reduce risk of artery disease!

New Delhi: Fruits and veggies are known to harbour multifarious health benefits, with every different natural produce offering us not just one, but numerous nutritional properties.

Dieticians, nutritionists and fitness experts have time and again emphasised the importance of inculcating these nutritious goodies into our daily diets.

Bolstering this advise, researchers have gone one step ahead and added another benefit of consuming nature's goodness.

Through a new study, researchers have encouraged increased daily consumption of fruits and vegetables saying that it can lower your risk of developing an artery disease that affects blood flow to the legs.

Peripheral artery disease (PAD) narrows the arteries of the legs, limiting blood flow to the muscles and making it difficult or painful to walk or stand.

The findings revealed that people who ate three or more daily servings of fruits and vegetables had 18 percent lower odds of PAD than those who ate less.

"Our study provides information that something as simple as adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet could have a major impact on the prevalence of life-altering PAD," said Jeffrey Berger, Associate Professor at New York University School of Medicine in New York City.

The study was reported in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

In addition, the association of lower PAD and increased intake of fruits and vegetables, was found particularly among participants who were current or former smokers.

For the study, the team analysed 3.7 million people whose average age was 64, 6.3 percent of whom had PAD, and 29.2 percent reported eating three or more portions of fruit and vegetables every day.

They also completed ankle brachial index texts which compare blood pressure differences between readings at the ankle and the forearm.

Previous studies linked lower consumption of fruits and vegetables with the increased occurrence of coronary heart disease and stroke.

(With IANS inputs)