5. Sweet Potatoes Have Surprising Health Benefits

Sweet potatoes are a starchy, sweet root vegetable that is grown all over the world (1Trusted Source).

They are high in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fibre and come in a variety of sizes and hues, including orange, white, and purple.

They also provide a variety of health advantages and are simple to incorporate into your diet.

Sweet potatoes have six surprising health advantages.

1. High in Nutrients
Fiber, vitamins, and minerals are abundant in sweet potatoes.

2Trusted Source): 1 cup (200 grammes) cooked sweet potato with skin provides

180 calories; 41.4 grammes carbohydrates
4 grammes of protein
0.3 grammes of fat
6.6 grammes of fibre
769 percent of the Daily Value for Vitamin A (DV)
65 percent of the daily value of vitamin C
Manganese: 50% of the daily value
Vitamin B6: 29% of the Daily Value
Potassium: 27% of the daily value
Pantothenic acid: 18% of the daily value
Copper: 16% of the daily value
Niacin: 15% of the Daily Value
Sweet potatoes, particularly the orange and purple types, are also high in antioxidants, which protect your body from free radicals (3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source).

2. Encourage gut health
Sweet potatoes' fibre and antioxidants are beneficial to intestinal health.

Soluble and insoluble fibre are found in sweet potatoes (8Trusted Source).

Neither kind can be digested by your body. Fiber, as a result, remains in your digestive tract and delivers a number of gut-related health advantages.

Viscous fibres are a type of soluble fibre that absorbs water and softens your faeces. Non-viscous, insoluble fibres, on the other hand, do not absorb water and increase mass (9Trusted Source).

Some soluble and insoluble fibres can be digested by bacteria in your colon, resulting in substances called short-chain fatty acids, which feed and strengthen the cells of your intestinal lining (10Trusted Source, 11Trusted Source).

The consumption of 20–33 grammes of fibre per day has been related to a decreased risk of colon cancer and more regular bowel movements (12Trusted Source, 13Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source).

Sweet potatoes' antioxidants may also be beneficial to the intestines.

Antioxidants in purple sweet potatoes have been shown in test tubes to increase the development of beneficial gut bacteria such as Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus species (15Trusted Source, 16Trusted Source).

Increased levels of these bacteria in the intestines are linked to improved gut health and a reduced risk of illnesses including irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and infectious diarrhoea (17Trusted Source, 18Trusted Source, 19Trusted Source).

3. Has the Potential to Fight Cancer
Sweet potatoes include a number of antioxidants that may help protect against some malignancies.

In test-tube experiments, anthocyanins, a group of antioxidants present in purple sweet potatoes, have been demonstrated to delay the development of cancer cells from the bladder, colon, stomach, and breast (3Trusted Source, 20Trusted Source, 21Trusted Source).

Similarly, rats fed purple sweet potato diets had decreased incidences of early-stage colon cancer, suggesting that the anthocyanins in the potatoes may be protective (3Trusted Source, 22Trusted Source).

In test-tube investigations, extracts of orange sweet potatoes and sweet potato peels were also discovered to have anti-cancer potential (23Trusted Source, 24Trusted Source).

However, these effects have yet to be tested in trials.

4. Encourage good vision
Sweet potatoes are high in beta-carotene, the antioxidant responsible for the vivid orange colour of the vegetable.

In fact, one cup (200 grammes) of roasted orange sweet potato with skin has more than seven times the daily recommended dose of beta-carotene for an adult (2Trusted Source).

In your body, beta-carotene is converted to vitamin A, which is then utilised to create light-detecting receptors in your eyes (25Trusted Source, 26Trusted Source).

In impoverished nations, severe vitamin A deficiency is a problem that can lead to xerophthalmia, a kind of blindness. Eating beta-carotene-rich foods, such as orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, may help to avoid this illness (27Trusted Source).

Purple sweet potatoes appear to help with eyesight as well.

The anthocyanins they give have been shown in test tubes to prevent eye cells from injury, which might be important for general eye health (28Trusted Source).

5. Improves brain function
Purple sweet potatoes may help to boost brain function.

Purple sweet potatoes' anthocyanins have been shown in animal tests to protect the brain by lowering inflammation and avoiding free radical damage (29Trusted Source, 30Trusted Source, 31Trusted Source).

Sweet potato extract high in anthocyanins has been demonstrated to boost learning and memory in rats, presumably because of its antioxidant characteristics (32Trusted Source, 33Trusted Source).

Although no human studies have been conducted, a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and antioxidants has been linked to a 13 percent decreased incidence of mental decline and dementia (34Trusted Source).