5 Health Benefits of Flaxseeds

Flax is an amazing plant that is used to make linen, and whose seeds have wonderful health properties! Perhaps the most potent form of flaxseed is freshly ground whole seeds. If you grind your own flaxseeds at home, then you’re getting them in their most potent state (ground flaxseeds get rancid fast, so its best to grind them yourself). But flaxseed oil also contains a lot of helpful nutrients, too! You really can’t go wrong eating flaxseeds in any form! Check out these 5 Health Benefits of Flaxseeds!

5 Health Benefits of Flaxseeds

1. Detox Your Colon

If you want an easy way to detox your colon, you’ve got to use flaxseeds! In particular, a mixture of ground flaxseeds and kefir makes a wonderful colon cleanse (whole flaxseeds can wind up being undigested, so ground is best in this case). Because flaxseeds expand in your gut (they absorb water), they help push everything else in your gut along. They also are anti-inflammatory, which can help with such gut issues as irritable bowel syndrome.

2. Improve Your Hair Health

One of the great benefits of flaxseeds is that they can help your hair! Because they have a lot of omega-3 fatty acids, they are able to help reduce hair breakage. They also contain a lot of hair healthy nutrients, such as Vitamin E. Vitamin E can help your hair keep its color as you get older, and strengthens the strands. All you’ve got to do is eat some flaxseeds every day, and soon you’ll start seeing the results in your hair!

3. Help Lower Cholesterol

Have you ever heard that you should use flaxseeds to lower your cholesterol? One of the great benefits of flaxseeds it that they have a lot of dietary fiber. This fiber can bind with the cholesterol in your gut, preventing your body from absorbing as much of it. This works best if you’re eating ground flaxseeds (again, whole flaxseeds pass through your gut too quickly to be of much help in that area).

4. Aid Weight Loss

Are you trying to lose weight? Then you should be eating flaxseeds! The way flaxseeds help with weight loss is in the form of an appetite suppressant. Because they expand in your gut, they make you feel fuller. If you eat some of them before or during your meal, you’ll be less likely to go for seconds, or to grab another snack an hour later. Flaxseeds also help with weight loss because of their anti-inflammatory properties. If your body has inflammation, it’ll be more *likely to retain fat. The less inflammation you have, the easier it’ll be to lose weight!

5. Anti-Cancer

Perhaps one of the best benefits of flaxseeds is that they can reduce your cancer risk, or help your body fight cancer. Flaxseeds have mainly been studied in their effect on breast cancer, but it’s believed that flaxseeds can help a lot with other forms of cancer as well. Flaxseeds gain their anti-cancer properties from their fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, and lignans (a form of estrogen). The powerful anti-cancer Budwig Diet uses a combo of flaxseed oil and cottage cheese to help fight cancer.

You may also like to read about these about these 5 Healthy Foods to Ward off Chronic Ailments!