Top 10 Amazing Health Benefits Of Dates

Date Photo – Wikipedia – lic. under CC 3.0. Recipe – Tarladalal.com (with permission)

Dates may not break any world records as far as single nutrients are concerned. But as far as variety of nutrients goes, dates would definitely be among the top contenders in the Most Nutritious Fruit contest, if such a contest were to exist.

These sweet Middle Eastern delicacies are full of protein, dietary fiber, unsaturated fatty acids, pectin, vitamins A, C, B1, B2, and niacin, and the minerals aluminum, boron, calcium, copper, fluorine, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, selenium, sulfur, and zinc.

All of these confer huge health benefits upon this fruit. Here are ten of them.

1. Diabetes Control: Despite the fruit’s sweetness, many date varieties actually have a low glycemic index, so they can be safely consumed in moderation by diabetics without resulting a dangerous spike in blood sugar levels. ^[1]

2. Liver Protection: One animal study suggests that date consumption, in conjunction with ascorbic acid intake, has a protective effect on the liver, as shown by a lower rate of plasma bilirubin elevation upon the liver’s exposure to the thioacetamide toxin. ^[2]

3. Kidney Protection: Dates have also been found effective in reducing the rate of creatinine and urea increase caused by toxin injection on animal subjects. Researchers observed that dates lessened the damage inflicted on the subjects’ nephrons by the injected toxin. The researchers surmise that the protective effect is due to the antioxidant properties of the dates. ^[3]

4. Constipation Treatment: Aside from having a good amount of stool-bulking and stool-softening fiber, dates have also been found to stimulate intestinal movement, thus increasing their usefulness and effectiveness in treating constipation. ^[4]

5. Anti-obesity: Consumption of date extracts have been found to normalize the levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), free fatty acids, and triglycerides in the blood of subjects with high-fat-diet induced obesity. This finding suggests that the fruit has potential for preventing obesity and its deleterious effects on the body. ^[5]

6. Cardiovascular Health: Aside from reducing the amount of harmful triglycerides and LDL in the bloodstream, dates added to the diet have also been shown to prevent the formation of plaque build-up in the arteries, thus paving the way to a healthier cardiovascular system. ^[6]

7. Antibiotic Properties: Some date varieties have been proven to be up to 60% as effective as ampicillin in fighting common bacteria such as E. coli, Pseudomonas aeuroginosa, Shigella sp., and Staphylococcus aureus. ^[7]

8. Gastric Protection: Dates have long been used as a folk treatment for gastric ulceration. A study corroborated the scientific soundness of this practice by showing that feeding date fruit extracts to mice before giving them ethanol resulted in a lower rate of gastric ulcer formation than among their counterparts that were not given dates beforehand. ^[8]

9. Anti-cancer: Purified glucans from Libyan dates have been found to display a powerful anti-tumor activity. ^[9] Dates also contain a good amount of selenium, which is also believed to have an anti-cancer effect. ^[10]

10. Vegetarian Protein Source: Date-sourced protein is considered a superior form of non-animal protein, as it contains 23 types of amino acids that are not always found in more popular fruits. ^[10]

One thing to remember about dates is that these fruits are consumed with their skin on. It is therefore important to choose dates that are produced without the use of chemical pesticides, to ensure that such toxins do not contaminate the fruit we eat.

For this reason, it is best to choose dates that were organically cultivated. Also look for good packaging, because it is easy for impurities to adhere to the sticky surface of dates if the fruits are left exposed.

Thanks so much to Tarladalal.com (great website, check it out!) for their kind permission to include their healthy date roll recipe in our infographic!