For many folks sweet potatoes are a food for the Thanksgiving season and usually no other time. It turns out that sweet potatoes provide an impressive array of nutrients, despite the fact that they are not really potatoes. They are members of the Convolvulaceae family which are plants with trumpet shaped flowers. Sweet potatoes come in 400 different varieties and range in skin color from white to yellow to orange to red to purple. The typical sweet potato has orange flesh and is sometimes called a yam. Folks have been consuming sweet potatoes for about 8,000 years. They were introduced in Europe by Christopher Columbus when he returned from the New World after 1492.
The good news for seniors is that sweet potatoes provide large amounts of the vitamins A and C and the minerals potassium and manganese. To top it off they deliver lots of fiber. Additional nutrients found in sweet potatoes include beta-carotene, copper, and vitamin B-6. Sweet potatoes hold special interest for senior men who need to supplement with beta-carotene, because consuming them on a regular basis may support cognitive function. Sweet potatoes have shown to provide significant support in reeling in some of the markers for diabetes, particularly improved insulin resistance. Finally in a cancer risk study that compared folks in Asia with those in North America and Northern Europe, the folks in Asia who regularly consumed sweet potatoes had a much lower risk of cancer compared with the folks in Northern Europe and North America who did not. For all these good healthy results that come from consuming sweet potatoes the conclusion for senior health is that sweet potatoes really are a super food.