Fortunately, diets high in antioxidant-rich foods like watercress can help protect against oxidative stress, which may lower your risk of these diseases.
One study on the antioxidant compounds in 12 different cruciferous vegetables found over 40 unique flavonoids, a type of plant chemical, in watercress.
In fact, watercress outperformed all other vegetables in this study in terms of total amount of phenols and the ability to neutralize free radicals.