Wild Blueberry Research You Should Know About
According to Dr. David B. Agus, author of The End of Illness, we are on the cusp of a health revolution.
Through biomedical engineering, understanding our DNA, and mapping the proteins in our blood, we’ll know 1) our predisposition for a variety of illnesses 2) our nutritional deficiencies, and 3) our nutritional prescription for preventing those diseases. According to Agus, this revolution will endow us with the data we desperately need to optimize our individual health.
If we’re lucky, such personalized medicine will be available in our lifetime. But until we all have access to our biological profile, along with the sound medical advice to parse the data and allow us to individualize our nutrition, we must opt for the best health and nutrition advice we have – the kind known to work best for a broad population.
We know that improving the way we eat can be the best preventative medicine. Real foods deliver nutritional benefits the most efficient, safest way: without shortcuts. While we wait for science to help deliver the perfect, tailored preventative diet, eating real food to get the nutrition we need, and staying up-to-date about new technologies that can improve our health is our best strategy.
Part of that strategy includes absorbing health research that applies to you. Not sure what does? You probably already know a lot about your personal health. You may know if you have a genetic predisposition to certain illnesses. You know if you are experiencing health challenges. You also know that you are committed to prevention that will lengthen your life.
That knowledge is the first powerful step toward creating your own personal health profile and eating a diet that prevents and battles illness.
Health News That Might Just Be Crucial to Your Health
What recent research impacts your personal health? The following list includes some valuable new research about health, and their common denominator is wild blueberries. Their anti-inflammatory phytonutrients and powerfully concentrated nutrients make wild blueberries an ideal Rx for general prevention, as well as for body weight issues, maintaining heart health, bowel and digestive problems, and a particularly rare form of breast cancer.
Body Weight & Heart Health. Torching belly fat is not just a matter of looking good– there’s much more at stake than fitting into your skinny jeans. Belly fat is an indicator that you may be at risk of heart disease and type-2 diabetes. Belly fat boosts inflammation and hardens arteries. And, If your waist size is more than half your height, you’re at higher risk for developing diabetes. Phytonutrients, which are responsible for the dark pigment in fruits like blueberries, are uniquely helpful in lowering the risk of heart disease and type-2 diabetes. Wild blueberries in the diet also correlate to lower cholesterol and improved glucose control, and offer concentrated nutrition for few calories (just 42 belly-flattening calories in ½ cup).
Bowel Health. If bowel health is a concern for you, you are among thousands of suffers. As Western diets proliferate throughout the globe, the numbers appear to grow. A new report published in Nutrition
about the nutrition and bowel health connection provides some promising news for those suffering with a common bowel disorder, Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Recent research shows broccoli or blueberries (both were studied in this research performed on mice) may decrease bacteria strains, reduce e. coli, and improve intestinal damage. Colon inflammation tended to be lower for both broccoli and blueberry-fed mice, and tended toward being even lower for those fed blueberries.
This comes on the heels of research into blueberry and gut health that shows that wild blueberries may support intestinal balance and may be helpful in increasing beneficial bacteria (particularly in studies of blueberry powder).
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer. We reported this groundbreaking City of Hope study in a recent post, which explains the promising conclusions that blueberries may slow down the growth of, or stop, triple-negative breast cancer tumors. Triple-negative breast cancer is one of the most aggressive types of breast cancer. It doesn’t respond to traditional cancer treatment, and there are few effective drugs available to combat it. Such a discovery would have a major impact on those with this devastating disease, and those at risk for it.
But there’s no need to wait to start a disease-fighting regimen: there is overwhelming agreement in the scientific community that efforts to lower the risk of breast cancer should involve eating blueberries, along with a variety of fruits and vegetables. Initial studies credit, again, phytochemicals, found in uniquely high concentrations in wild blueberries, for evidence that they might suppress the proliferation and migration of these cancer cells in humanly-consumable doses. In a world of quick-fix supplements and bottled nutritional tinctures, that a preventative for this deadly form of cancer is widely available seems nothing short of a miracle.
A Bit About Wild
While some research focusing on the power of blueberries utilizes the high-bush berry, many target the wild blueberry, or low-bush blueberry, for their nutritional research. Rightly so. It is important to understand that the smaller wild blueberry (wild blueberries will always include the “wild” moniker) has advantages that the cultivated, or high-bush blueberry doesn’t. If you are interested in amplified nutrition (not to mention amped-up taste), choosing the smaller, nutritionally-concentrated wild is essential.
Wild blueberries have a long health history. They are an indigenous fruit grown wild in barrens of Maine and parts of Canada for hundreds of years, and their natural resistance nurtured by rugged soil and challenging weather has made them an enormously powerful fruit with naturally intense nutritional benefits. There is simply no reason not to choose wild—wild blueberries have an increased concentration of these beneficial phytonutrients, and that means you are consuming more health benefits per serving. Opting for berries other than wild is a nutritionally senseless compromise.
An Ounce of Prevention: Today’s Pound of Cure
While scientists continue to conduct research into cures for challenging illness, they often come up with more mysteries. As many nutrition researchers indict environment, Western diets, and genetics, cures remain elusive. It is prevention that will lengthen our life. Fortunately, prevention is achievable by taking advantage of the readily available foods that surround us, both in their fresh, and equally beneficial frozen states.
Until we can take targeted preventative measures based on our personal health profile, health and nutrition gained through real foods offer their own innate, naturally powerful benefits. Eating wild blueberries as part of a broad color spectrum of fruits and vegetables, may be one of the best preventative tactics we have available to us.