Eating healthy is a staple of advice for those with cardiovascular disease. Doctors will tell you to fill your diet with fruits, vegetables, high-fiber and low-protein foods, but how big a difference does nutrition make? A new study can give a very specific answer, as least as it related to blueberries.
The cardiovascular benefits of anthocyanins
Researchers from the Department of Nutritional Sciences at King’s College London wanted to focus on blueberries and their potential benefits on the cardiovascular system.
They had 40 perfectly healthy volunteers divide into two groups. One group consumed a drink with 200 grams of blueberries daily while the other group received a control drink.
The team measure the volunteers’ flow-mediated dilation of brachial arteries—which measures how much the artery widens at a greater blood flow—as well as their blood pressure.
In just two hours after consuming the blueberry drinks, the researchers that the anthocyanins (which give the blueberries their color) were already having a positive effect o endothelial function.
Better still, after a month of consuming the blueberry drinks daily, the volunteers had lowered their blood pressured by an average of 5 mm of mercury, something that usually only happens with medication.
“Our results identify anthocyanin metabolites as major mediators of vascular bioactivities of blueberries and changes of cellular gene programs,” concluded the study authors. Lead author Ana Rodriguez-Mateos when on to say, “If the changes we saw in blood vessel function after eating blueberries every day could be sustained for a person’s whole life, it could reduce their risk of developing cardiovascular disease by up to 20 percent.”
Part two of the study
To see if it was indeed the anthocyanins in the blueberries that created the benefits to the cardiovascular system, the researchers also had other volunteers drink purified anthocyanins or the control drink with concentrations of fiber, minerals or vitamins equivalent to those in blueberries.
Those drinks with purified anthocyanins were similar to the blueberry drinks, while the control group had no significant improvements.
