Blueberries Reduce Hardening of the Arteries

WASHINGTONAdding about half a cup of blueberries to a diet may benefit cardiovascular health by preventing harmful plaques or lesions, symptomatic of atherosclerosis, from increasing in size in arteries, according to a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition.

The research, conducted on mice at the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, provides the first direct evidence that blueberries can help fight artery hardening.

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, was 39 percent and 58 percent less than that of lesions in mice whose diet did not contain blueberry powder. The blueberry-spiked diet contained 1 percent blueberry powder, the equivalent of about a half-cup of fresh blueberries.

All mice in the investigation were deficient in apolipoprotein-E, a trait that makes them highly susceptible to forming atherosclerotic lesions and, therefore, an excellent model for biomedical and nutrition research.