Vegetables may help protect elderly women from hardening of neck arteries

Elderly Australian women who ate more vegetables showed less carotid artery wall thickness, according to new research in Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. Cruciferous vegetables including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts proved the most beneficial. “This is one of only a few studies that have explored the potential impact of different types of vegetables on measures of subclinical atherosclerosis, the underlying cause of cardiovascular disease,” said Lauren Blekkenhorst, study lead author and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Western Australia in Crawley. Researchers distributed food frequency questionnaires to