You can't say enough about the health benefits of carrots. Carrots contain an abundant amount of vitamins and minerals and are a tasty way to add extra nutrition to the diet. One-half cup of carrots provides 13286 IU of vitamin A, almost 1½ times the daily-required amount for men and almost twice the amount for women.

Carrots also contains high amount of other vitamins and minerals. It has almost 10 percent of the necessary vitamin K and C, with additionally higher amounts of potassium, vitamin B6, manganese, Vitamin B1 and B2, phosphorous, magnesium and folate. A single serving of carrots also contains zinc, copper, selenium and is high in dietary fiber.

A study on cancer prevention showed that the beta-carotene in carrots help reduce cancer. While it lowered the rate of lung cancer and breast cancer, it's most impressive results came from the reduction of the risk of colon cancer by an impressive 24 percent.

The vitamin A might help your lungs. Animal studies show that lungs damaged by smoking and environment stresses improved and healed when the lab animals received additional vitamin A. While there are no human studies on this, a carrot or two a day won't hurt you by any means and may even help people with COPD.

Regular consumption of carrots could also improve your heart and reduce the risk of a coronary event. The Wolfson Gastrointestinal Lab in Edinburgh found that just seven ounces of carrots daily reduced cholesterol. The Mario Negri Institute of Pharmacological Research in Italy found that people that ate carrots on a regular basis reduced the risk of heart attacks by as much as 1/3.

Carrots contain carotenoids. Carotenoids give the carrot its color but they do much more for the body. Scientists find that they help reduce blood sugar levels an insulin resistance. They also reduce the potential of a stroke by as much as 68 percent. High levels of beta-carotenoids in the body increase the likelihood of surviving a stroke.

It's not just a wives tale that carrots are good for the vision. Not only is a combination of carrots and olive oil simmered slowly helpful for dry eyes and night blindness, adding carrots to the diet also reduces the risk of age related macular degeneration by as much as 40 percent.

The abundant fiber in carrots also helps with ailments such as high cholesterol and constipation. Adding any soluble fiber to the diet improves these conditions immensely. In addition, you get the benefit of the other nutrients contained in the carrot.

Boiling carrots actually reduces some of the valuable nutrition. If you prefer cooked vegetables to raw ones, consider steaming the carrots instead. An inexpensive steaming tray put into a pan with an inch of water can make a treat fit for a king. Simply peel the carrots, put them in the steaming tray, cover the pan, bring the water to a boil and allow the carrots to cook. You enhance the carrots sweetness by steaming it. Larger carrots taste far better than the small already peeled ones found on the grocer shelf.

If you want all the healthful goodness of the carrot, drink carrot juice. If you have a juicer, that's the best way to extract the juice without getting a lot of pulp. However, you can also use a blender if you want the additional fiber in your diet. Drinking a glass of carrot juice each day dramatically improves your health with no side effects that medications often contain. You can experiment by adding other fruits and vegetables to the mix. Not only will you find the drinks taste great, you'll get all the health benefits of carrots in one glass.