A good intention for the coming year? We are sure that you will have a lot of good intentions but today we’ll give you one more, eating more berries, in particular, blueberries! According to a very recent research published a few months ago on the prestigious journal Advances in Nutrition of the American Society for Nutrition (Kalt et al, 2019), indeed, one third cup of blueberries per day is enough to reduce the risk of a wide range of diseases of heart and brain.
Blueberries are one of the richest sources of anthocyanins, the powerful antioxidants that give the purple and blue color to the fruit. The anthocyanins are the 60% of the total polyphenols in blueberry and probably they determine all their healthy properties. According to the study, a diet rich in anthocyanins is linked to a lower risk of heart stroke, up to 30% lower risk, but also to a reduced risk of developing hypertension or coronary diseases. Moreover, the anthocyanins are connected to a higher control of the body weight, to a decrease in fat and to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, it is estimated in fact a 26% lower probability. A diet rich in blueberries, and therefore anthocyanins, brings lower values of bad or LDL cholesterol, of triglycerides while it increases the levels of good or HDL cholesterol. But blueberries help also counteract the inflammatory processes and bring benefits to the intestinal microbiota, namely the bacteria that live in our gut. The health of microbiota is one of the new frontiers in medicine since more and more researches are demonstrating that a healthy microbiota brings benefits not just to digestion but also to the brain, to the immune system and in general to the functioning of the entire body. But the properties of blueberries don’t end there. Indeed, according to the research, a higher intake of blueberries is able to counteract the cognitive decline in elderly, brings to a decrease in the risk of developing Parkinson and, as scientists think, also Alzheimer.
For this reason, green light to blueberries! And if it isn’t season, like now? Don’t worry, there are frozen blueberries that have demonstrated to preserve the anthocyanins, vitamin C and the antioxidant capacity of this amazing fruit. Indeed, after 10 months at -18° the loss of anthocyanins was only 12%!
