 |
Health Benefits of Carrots
 |
Nutritional Value of Carrot
Carrot provides 40 calories for 100 gram of its consumption. Carrot is a rich source of beta-carotene because of which it gets its orange colour. Carrots contains dietary fibre, vitamin-A, antioxidants and minerals like iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphorous.
Health Benefits of Carrot – Improves Eyesight
We all know vitamin-A helps in improving the eyesight and carrot is one of the major sources of vitamin-A. Lack of vitamin-A can damage the retina of the eye and can cause poor vision and night blindness. Beta-carotene which basically gets converted into vitamin-A in the body helps in the protection against senile cataract and macular degeneration in elderly.
Carrots Nutrition and Good Health
Carrot do however help you see in the dark
- Well - Yes And No!
- When you eat carrots, the beta-carotene is transformed into retinol or vitamin A. Carrots are high in Vitamin A, and a deficiency in this nutrient can cause some difficulty seeing in dim light. Vitamin A is essential for the formation of the chemical retinal, whose presence in the retina is necessary for vision. Our eyes have two kinds of light sensitive cells: the rods and the cones. The rods are the cells we rely on to see in dim light. They are sensitive to Vitamin A deficiency, because it can cause a shortage of retinal.
The retina is the light-sensing part of the eye that holds the rods and cones, which contain enzymes that absorb light and allow us to see. When light strikes the retinal molecule, it changes its shape. This activates a cascade of chemical reactions that informs the brain that light has entered the eye. When the levels of light sensitive molecules are low, due to Vitamin A deficiency, there will not be enough retinal to detect the light at night. During the day there is enough light to produce vision, despite low levels of retinal. So it's only night vision that can be improved by eating carrots.
The rods provide black and white vision and respond in dim light while the cones provide colour vision and respond to bright light. Vitamin A helps the retina tell black from white and provides for colour vision. It also helps us see in dim light or at night. When you go into a darkened theatre after being out in the bright light, your eyes are able to adapt because of the vitamin A that you have stored in your body.
So really the answer is they do help you see in the dark, but can only improve your night vision if you are deficient in Vitamin A.
