Blueberries have become popular ingredients within the juice and functional beverage categories because they deliver nutritional benefit such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants into the diet.
Blueberries are a different phytonutrients rich dietary source. Among the many phenolic compounds, anthocyanins have a great amount of attention since they possess potent antioxidant activity. Anthocyanins have shown an important role in the prevention of macular degeneration, neuronal diseases, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes.
It has been shown that blueberry juice supplements attenuated liver fibrosis in animal model. Oxidative stress is also involved in progression of hypertension and hypertension-induced renal injury.
Study by University of Hong Kong showed that blueberry supplementation conferred fast protection on human leucocyte DNA in circulation. The study showed that blueberry juice lowered DNA damage in invitro study. Supplementation of a single dose of 40g blueberry fruit lowered DNA damage by 28% within 2 hours.
Research has demonstrated anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, and anti-mutagenic properties of blueberry compounds and suggested that blueberries may help protect the brain, cardiovascular and central nervous system, and reduce type 2 diabetes.
Blueberry juice: Health benefits
