Raw vegetables alone may not protect you from heart diseases

Eating raw vegetables is always hailed to be a good idea. Vegetables have variety of benefits. Such a diet has even found to be helping reduce risk of cardiovascular diseases. 

But now scientists are saying that vegetables alone may not be enough to reduce the risk of heart diseases. They made the assertion based on study involving observation of 400,000 people. These people are taking part in UK Biobank study.

The scientists say that in addition to consumption of vegetables, reduced risk of heart disease also depended on what else was part of the diet, how much exercise was done, how and where the survey participants lived.

Universities of Oxford, Bristol and Chinese University of Hong Kong asked these people to fill a questionnaire about their diet. This included quantity of cooked and raw vegetables they ate each day. 

Health of these people, possible heart problems leading to hospitalisation or death was monitored. All these factors were tracked for next 12 years. 

Researchers found that risk of death from cardiovascular diseases was 15 per cent lower for those who had more vegetables in their diet. But the risk also depended on people's lifestyles. This included factors like whether they smoked or consumed alcohol. It also depended on their jobs, incomes and overall diet