A new research study from the University of Eastern Finland demonstrated that eating bilberries could reduce the negative effects generally identified with high fat diets. This pioneering effort investigated the blood pressure lowering effect of the fruit. Another effect was its ability to respond to inflammation, a condition which is commonly attributed to dietary insufficiency.
The study looked into the heath attributes of bilberries, also known as wild berries and included feeding mice high-fat diets for a period of 3 months; five to 10 percent of these diets consisted of freeze-dried wild berries. Afterwards, the research members evaluated the response of individual animals to the diet.
They checked for any cell inflammation, rise or fall of cytokine levels, systole, reaction to insulin and glucose, and any weight gain. The results may hold promise for individuals with high blood pressure and low level cell inflammation; conditions which are mostly obesity related.
It was observed that mice consuming high fat diets were gaining a lot of weight and suffered from the adverse effects in the change of glucose and lipid assimilation, conditions related to cell inflammation as well as their blood pressure.
It was also observed that bilberries had the ability to stop the rise of blood pressure brought about by a high fat diet.
Other beneficial effects of bilberries included diabetes, varicose, gastrointestinal diseases, gout, atherosclerosis, kidney disorders, osteoarthritis, hemorrhoids, chronic fatigue syndrome, chest pains, urinary tract infection or UTI, varicose veins and skin infections. This was due to their high polyphenol content, particularly anthocyanins.
The Nordic diet is noted to have high bilberry content, which is considered excellent for a healthy diet.
Bilberries are similar to blueberries except that they grow in the wild and are also more acidic in nature. Their acidity might be the reason for their very high medicinal value
