Figs and their leaves are packed with nutrients and offer a variety of potential health benefits. They may promote healthy digestion, decrease your risk of heart disease, and help you manage your blood sugar levels, as previously noted. Here Winnie Martin, Food.news, reflects on how figs can do wonders for your health.

“Originally hailing from the Transcaucasia region, Figs (Ficus carica) are now ubiquitous in different Mediterranean and Central Asian countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey and Georgia.

Turkey is the world’s leading producer of figs. The country’s largest fig tree populations are found along the shores of the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara as well as along rivers in southeastern and central Anatolia. Iran is also a major producer of the

fruit with about 90 percent produced in the southwestern Fars province.

Aside from being used for food, figs have also been used for medicinal purposes. In Iran’s Fars province, figs are traditionally used to cure warts and as a purgative. In Omani traditional medicine, fig fruits are boiled in water and the resulting liquid drunk to relieve cough. Meanwhile, Greek folk medicine traditionally recommends eating large quantities of fresh figs to expel intestinal worms.

With these in mind, it may be a good idea for you to follow suit and include figs in your diet today?

Figs can help keep blood glucose levels at bay

Naturally sweet figs can also stabilize your blood sugar levels, aside from being delicious snacks themselves. A 2018 study found that compounds present in figs such as flavonoids, phenolic acids, tannins and vitamin E contributed to enhanced production of insulin and reduced blood glucose in diabetic patients.

A study performed the succeeding year found that fig fruit extract had significant effects on blood sugar and insulin levels. Ten healthy adults drank four test beverages with 100 milligrams, 200 milligrams, 600 milligrams and 1,200 milligrams of fig fruit extract – with researchers assessing their post-meal glucose and insulin levels over two hours. Volunteers who drank the beverages containing 600 and 1,200 milligrams of fig fruit extract had lower blood sugar levels, while blood insulin levels in all participants went down depending on the amount of fig extract their drink contained.”

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