(NaturalNews) Although several studies involving laboratory animals have provided tantalizing clues that eating blueberries improves memory, could the delicious fruit actually help people retain their mental sharpness as they age? The good new appears to be "yes". In fact, blueberries might even boost brain power.
For the very first time, a study has found evidence that blueberry juice improves memory in humans. For the research project, a team of scientists from the University of Cincinnati, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Canadian Department of Agriculture worked with a group of volunteers in their 70s who suffered from early
memory decline. Half the group drank the equivalent of two to two and 1/2 cups of
blueberry juice every day for two months. As a control, a second group drank a different beverage that did not contain any blueberry
juice.
After about eight weeks, the
scientists conducted learning and memory tests to see if the
research participants' cognitive abilities had undergone any measurable changes. The results, which were recently published in the American Chemical Society's (ACS)
Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, showed that the elders who had been regularly drinking blueberry juice demonstrated significant improvement in their mental faculties.
Lead researcher Robert Krikorian and colleagues concluded that eating
blueberries, which are a rich source of antioxidants and phytochemicals, may help boost memory in the aged. Bottom line: the study establishes a basis for larger, comprehensive human clinical trials to further document how blueberries can be a powerful aid for keeping brains and thinking abilities healthy and strong into old age.
"These preliminary memory findings are encouraging and suggest that consistent supplementation with blueberries may offer an approach to forestall or mitigate neurodegeneration," the researchers stated.
As
NaturalNews has previously reported, blueberries have gained the attention of researchers studying a whole range of ways this remarkable
fruit can protect and heal the body. For example, scientists at Rutgers University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture found in animal
studies that a compound in blueberries called
pterostilbene could prevent colon cancer (
http://www.naturalnews.com/021951_blueberries_cancer_colon_cancer.html).
In addition, another animal study revealed that blueberries can lower the levels of artery-clogging LDL (known as the "bad" cholesterol) as effectively as statin drugs, but without negative side effects (
http://www.naturalnews.com/002906_berries_blueberries_LDL_cholesterol.html).
For more information:http://www.naturalnews.com/blueberries.htmlhttp://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf9029332?tokenDomain=presspac&tokenA...http://www.naturalnews.com/025866_berries_food_blueberries.html
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