Dates are soothing on your digestive tract and have been used for centuries as a home remedy for ulcers. One 2005 study published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacy confirms that dates do in fact have the ability to soothe inflamed ulcers in your digestive tract.
Researchers said, “The results indicated that the aqueous and ethanolic extracts of the date fruit and, to a lesser extent, date pits, were effective in ameliorating the severity of gastric ulceration and mitigating the ethanol-induced increase in histamine and gastrin concentrations, and the decrease in mucin gastric levels.” (9)
In fact, the study even showed that eating dates was more effective for treating ulcers than a common drug, lansoprazole.
4. Facilitates Labor
This benefit may be a bit surprising to some people, but it goes back centuries. In Islam, the Koran states that Allah told the Virgin Mary to eat dates when she gave birth to Jesus (10). As such, dates are commonly used by pregnant women in Muslim culture. There is science to back this claim, however.
A 2011 study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology titled, “The effect of late pregnancy consumption of date fruit on labor and delivery,” showed that women who ate 6 dates daily for 4 weeks prior to their scheduled due date, had significantly improved cervical dilation when in labor. They also experienced less damage to their cervical membranes after giving birth.
Plus, the study concluded they went into more spontaneous labor (98 percent compared to 79 percent) and only 28 percent of women needed drugs like prostin/oxytocin to induce labor. In fact, researchers say it was significantly lower as 47 percent of non-date fruit consumers needed this medication. Finally, women who ate dates experienced an overall shorter labor (11).
5. Prevent Cancer
Dates contain high amounts of magnesium, a mineral that is crucial to your immune system. Magnesium calms inflammation in your body, a condition that is linked to a multitude of diseases, including such cancer, which is accelerated by inflammation. Dates are also full of beneficial antioxidants that fight free radicals and dangerous oxidation of your cells, again something that leads to disease.
Some research shows eating dates is a legitimate way to reduce the risk and impact of abdominal cancer. A recent 2015 study, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, shows that eating dates may also reduce colon cancer risk (12). Other studies are underway to determine if dates can help with other forms of cancer.
6. Improve Male Fertility
Surprisingly, studies also show that date palm pollen (DPP) may cure male infertility by improving the quality of sperm parameters (13).
A 2015 study published in the Pakistan Journal of Biological Sciences (PJBS) looked at 40 infertile men who consumed 120 mg DPP every other day, for two months.
They concluded that consumption of DPP improved their sperm count and in fact, “The treatment significantly increased sperm motility, morphology and forward progressive motility.”
Dates have high levels of estradiol and flavonoids believed to help increase sperm count and motility, and even increase testes size and weight. A common home remedy calls for soaking a handful of dates in fresh goat’s milk overnight, then grinding them in the milk with a mixture of cardamom powder and honey
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