Tuesday, February 3, 2009

green beans.

taken from the entry for green beans on whfoods.com:

"Green beans are a good source of riboflavin, which has been shown to help reduce the frequency of migraine attacks in people who suffer from them. Riboflavin's protective role in energy production may explain why. The oxygen-containing molecules the body uses to produce energy can be highly reactive and can inadvertently cause damage the mitochondria and even the cells themselves. In the mitochondria, such damage is largely prevented by a small, protein-like molecule called glutathione. Like many "antioxidant" molecules, glutathione must be constantly recycled, and it is vitamin B2 that allows this recycling to take place. (Technically, vitamin B2 is a cofactor for the enzyme glutathione reductase that reduces the oxidized form of glutathione back to its reduced version.) A cup of green beans supplies 7.1% of the DV for riboflavin."


I remember learning about mitochondria when I was in high school.

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