Blueberries Help Fight Artery Hardening, Lab Animal Study Indicates

Blueberries may help fight atherosclerosis, also known as hardening of the arteries. The research provides the first direct evidence that blueberries can help prevent harmful plaques or lesions, symptomatic of atherosclerosis, from increasing in size in arteries.

The study compared the size, or area, of atherosclerotic lesions in 30 young laboratory mice. Half of the animals were fed diets spiked with freeze-dried blueberry powder for 20 weeks; the diet of the other mice did not contain the berry powder.

Lesion size, measured at two sites on aorta (arteries leading from the heart), was 39 and 58 percent less than that of lesions in mice whose diet did not contain blueberry powder.

Original Paper:

X. Wu, J. Kang, C. Xie, R. Burris, M. E. Ferguson, T. M. Badger, S. Nagarajan. Dietary Blueberries Attenuate Atherosclerosis in Apolipoprotein E-Deficient Mice by Upregulating Antioxidant Enzyme Expression. Journal of Nutrition, 2010; 140 (9): 1628 DOI: 10.3945/jn.110.123927

Source:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100929105701.htm