Food & Wine I'm a blueberry emoji...
To explain, our company uses the instant-messaging app from Slack Technologies. And it comes with emojis, just like the kind you have for texting.
If you're an old Baby Boomer like me, you're probably not a regular user of emojis. But plenty of the youngsters around my office use them all of the time. And a couple of years ago, some of them decided I should have my own.
And, as will come as no surprise to longtime readers, I'm a blueberry.
I've had a decadeslong love affair with blueberries...
This fruit comes packed with polyphenols, or special chemicals unique to plants. And polyphenols have powerful antioxidant properties.
Our bodies create some antioxidants. But we can get more from – you guessed it – fruits and vegetables. And we need antioxidants because they neutralize the havoc wreaked on your body's cells...
The culprit of the havoc? Free radicals.
A free radical is an unstable atom. That just means the atom has an outer shell with an incomplete number of electrons. So it'll readily grab an electron from the outer shell of another atom.
This causes the other atom to transform into another free radical. It then pulls an electron from another atom.
Repeat and multiply those chain reactions, and you end up with damage done to proteins, fats, and even DNA.
Now, free radicals aren't all bad. That's because having some free radicals is important for the healthy functioning of your body.
Again, the problems begin when their numbers go unchecked. If the number of free radicals is greater than the number of antioxidants in your body, you end up with what's called oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress is a prime way to trigger inflammation. And inflammation can also increase free-radical levels in your body, heaping on even more oxidative stress.
That means more damaged and faulty cells, amplifying your risk of cancer, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, cataracts, and more. Oxidative stress can even damage proteins like elastin and collagen in skin, leading to premature aging in the form of wrinkles, sagging, and uneven tone.
But that's where the antioxidants come in. They neutralize free radicals and prevent oxidative stress.
And guess what? Blueberries have a ton of antioxidants – 13,427 in just a cup of wild blueberries. (Don't worry, blueberries grown by farmers also have a lot – 9,019 antioxidants per cup.)
Among the polyphenols, flavonoids are the kind most abundantly found in our diets. You'll find them in a huge variety of fruits and vegetables, along with other plant-based foods like tea, wine, and chocolate.
Sixty percent of blueberry polyphenols are called anthocyanins. And 98% of anthocyanins come from the peel, while the remaining 2% lies in the pulp. There are more anthocyanins in blueberries than in any other fruit. But you can also find them in red and purple grapes, strawberries, cranberries, and blackberries.
Anthocyanins bring a bevy of health benefits, some of which include the likes of...
- Lowering your risk of cardiovascular disease by reducing inflammation, which contributes to the process of plaque buildup in your arteries
- Preventing cancer by stopping DNA damage and cancer cells from growing
- Lowering blood pressure, according to a review of 66 studies
And anthocyanins and other flavonoids can protect our brains into old age...
It turns out that eating flavonoids helps protect you against cognitive decline – even in its worst forms like dementia and Alzheimer's. That's according to a longitudinal study lasting nearly 25 years, published in 2020 by the American Academy of Neurology.
Researchers looked at the diets of 75,000 participants aged 50 (at the start of the study) who are now in their 70s and 80s. Those who ate about 600 milligrams of flavonoids (or 0.02 ounces) per day had a 20% lower risk of cognitive decline than participants who only ate 150 milligrams (or 0.005 ounces) per day.
Another study from 2018 in the European Journal of Nutrition used 24 grams of freeze-dried blueberries – the equivalent of one cup of fresh blueberries – as the daily recommended amount with a group of adults aged 60 to 75.
After three months, the participants who ate blueberries every day – rather than a placebo – had fewer word-repetition errors on the California Verbal Learning Test and were better at completing tasks when the rules for that task changed. Verbal learning and task switching are two higher-order-thinking activities.
Don't forget that variety is key – eating a medley of fruit keeps us happier into old age. And the sooner you start, the better...
A study from Singapore published over the summer followed 13,738 middle-aged folks for 20 years. Researchers found that participants who had at least three daily servings of fruits (compared with those who ate less than a single serving) lowered their risk of age-related depression by 21%.
Participants ate fruits like watermelon, banana, papaya, and tangerines. Researchers believe that it's the high flavonoid content of these foods that kept inflammation at bay.
Even though we're nearing the end of blueberry season, don't forget to check the frozen-foods section of your grocery store...
Do what I do and stock up on frozen blueberries – especially when they're on sale. Multiple studies have shown that frozen blueberries actually have higher antioxidant levels than fresh ones. The freezing process forms crystals in the berries that make the antioxidants easier to break down when we consume them... This is "bioavailability."
I mix a handful of blueberries into my yogurt or cereal. I put them in everything... from smoothies to chocolate ice cream and waffle batter.
What We're Reading...
- Something different: This is how much laundry detergent you should actually use.
Here's to our health, wealth, and a great retirement,
Dr. David Eifrig and the Health & Wealth Bulletin Research Team
September 5, 2024