UK NEWS

SPINACH REALLY DOES HAVE THE POPEYE EFFECT

Popeye was on to something

Thursday May 8,2008

By Jo Willey

POPEYE was right all along – if you want bigger biceps, reach for the spinach.

Experts have discovered that the celluloid sailor’s favourite vegetable really does boost strength.

As the cartoon hero gulped down tin after tin of the green stuff before beating arch enemy Bluto, little did he know that he was eating a steroid which increases the development of muscles.

Spinach contains phytoecdysteroids which have been tested by scientists from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Extracts used on laboratory samples of human muscle speeded up growth by 20 per cent.

Further trials on rats found that injections of the extract made the rodents stronger within a month.

Spinach was picked as Popeye’s elixir in the 1950s as it has always been seen as a healthy food. It was even used as a cure for scurvy.

The latest research suggests that the cartoon’s creators were ahead of their time when they choose the vegetable over garlic to give him superhuman powers.

As well as being rich in vitamins, it is said to help eye disease, teeth, gum problems and anaemia. It is also used in the fight against cancer and as a detox food.

As one of Britain’s trendiest foods, sales soared by 30 per cent in 2006 after TV chefs and health gurus backed spinach. And medical researchers have highlighted its heart benefits – it can strengthen hearts, reduce the risk of a heart attack and boost survival rates by a third for attack victims.

It is can also help to protect against the most common cause of blindness – age related macular degeneration or AMD.

However, spinach-eating wimps hoping to develop Popeye’s forearms may need to think again.

According to the discovery – reported in the journal New Scientist – the average person must gulp down a kilogram of spinach a day to produce similar muscle growth.

Even for the love of Olive Oyl, that’s an awful lot of spinach.