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Berry Juices, Teas and Protection Against Heart Disease
A collaborative study involving the University of Glasgow and the University of Montpellier in France, has investigated the effects of Bouvrage raspberry, strawberry and bilberry juices and green and black tea on atherosclerosis in hamsters. Hamsters represent an invaluable test system as when fed a fat-rich diet within a period of 12 weeks they develop fatty streaks in the walls of arteries, indicative of heart disease and similar in many ways to human atheroma which take a much longer time to develop. The UK-French group report in Food Chemistry (1) that when hamsters were fed the fat-rich diet with the beverages there were remarkable 79-96% reductions in aortic lipid deposition, with raspberry juice and green tea being especially effective.
The volume of beverage which brought benefit to the hamsters was nutritionally relevant being equivalent to an adult human eating 120 g of raspberries or drinking one glass of juice or a mug of tea on a daily basis. The teas were ordinary Tetley teas purchased from a local supermarket and the Bouvrage juices, produced by Ella Drinks Ltd of Alloa, were also obtained from a local outlet. They are, therefore, both accessible and affordable for the general public.
This report on the potential effects of berries against the development of coronary heart disease is of note in the context of the Kame Study with elderly Japanese-Americans which suggests that long-term moderate consumption of fruit and vegetable juices can delay the onset of Alzheimers' disease (2) and other research showing that berries can slow cognitive decline in elderly rats (3).
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(1) Rouanet, J.-M., D?cord?, K., Del Rio, D., Auger, C., Borges, G., Cristol, J.-P., Lean, M.E.J., Crozier, A. (2010). Berry juices, teas, antioxidants and the prevention of atherosclerosis in hamsters. Food Chemistry, 118, 266-271.
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(2) Dai, Q., Boernstein, A.R., Wu, Y., Jackson, J.C., Larson, E.B (2006) Fruit and vegetable juices and Alzheimers' disease: the Kame project. The American Journal of Medicine 118, 751-759.
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(3) Shukitt-Hale B., Lau, F.C, Joseph, J.A. (2008) Berry fruit supplementation and the aging brain. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 56, 636-641.
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