What Can One Cup of Blueberries a Day Help?

Blueberries are an American favorite. Blueberries are called “star berries” by the Native Americans for their five-point star shape. They used blueberries for food and medicine. The berries were dried to be taken on long trips. It was a healthier version of today’s fruit rolls. They also made dye from blueberry juice, using it to paint textiles and baskets.

Blueberries were quickly adopted by the early settlers, who relied upon them when food was scarce. Learning from the Native Americans, early colonists made gray paint out of blueberries by boiling them in milk, using it to paint their homes.

Today, blueberries are still an integral part of our diet. Blueberries offer a variety of health benefits, including improving memory, cardiovascular health, assisting with digestion and reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Consuming them regularly keeps your brain sharp, and they even help shield us from the effects of toxic heavy metals.

The results of a new study reveal that blueberries may be the key in reducing high blood pressure and arterial stiffness, both of which are linked to cardiovascular disease.

According to Newswise.com:

“Our findings suggest that regular consumption of blueberries could potentially delay the progression of prehypertension to hypertension, therefore reducing cardiovascular disease risk,” said Sarah A. Johnson, assistant director of the Center for Advancing Exercise and Nutrition Research on Aging.

Published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the paper is called “Daily blueberry consumption improves blood pressure and arterial stiffness in postmenopausal women with pre and stage 1-hypertension.”

Johnson says she was interested in examining how functional foods, like blueberries, prevent and reverse negative health outcomes, particularly in postmenopausal women.

“Once women go through menopause, this puts them at an even greater risk for it. Our findings suggest that the addition of a single food, blueberries, to the diet may mitigate the negative cardiovascular effects that often occur as a result of menopause,” explained Johnson.

Blueberries help widen blood vessels by 68%:

Nitric oxide, a blood biomarker known to be involved in the process of widening arteries, increased by more than 68%, an important revelation considering that arterial stiffness and the narrowing of blood vessels are both a part of hypertension, according to Johnson.

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