Blueberries: Why eating a handful a day could lower blood pressure

"A humble - and delicious - berry could be the answer to improving your gut, brain and heart health, a major review found last week. Experts have long urged us to eat more blueberries, but thankfully you don't need to be consuming kilos of the superfruit for it to have an impact. Every year Britons consume 57,000 tonnes of the tiny fruits; enough to fill 23 Olympic size swimming pools."

"But while farmers across the UK now produce around a tenth of all the berries we eat - straight from the punnet, sprinkled over yogurt, baked into muffins or bejewelling a colourful fruit salad - the blueberry is not indigenous to the UK. In fact, they were first brought to the UK in 1952 and only introduced to supermarket shelves in the 90s, making their rise to the top of the nation's favourite fruits list all the more impressive."

"Today, Marks & Spencer makes more money from blueberries than from apples and pears combined, and at supermarket rival Aldi, blueberry punnets outsell bags of oranges by more than three units to one. In the UK sales have grown by 40 per cent over the past three years. To put that into perspective, if the trend continues at this rate, we will spend more than £1billion annually on blueberries by the end of the decade."

"Research shows that the blueberry has a host of health benefits, including improved blood vessel function, beneficial changes to the gut microbiome as well as improving memory. A review of 12 studies by the Wild Blueberry Association of North America published last week found that wild blueberries have 'whole body' health benefits One of the findings in the review was that wild blueberries can help support endothelial function - how well blood vessels relax - within hours after a single serving, and in other cases, with regular intake over weeks or months."

Blueberries provide measurable benefits for gut, brain and heart health, including improved blood vessel function, positive shifts in the gut microbiome and enhanced memory. Britons consume about 57,000 tonnes of blueberries each year. UK farmers now produce roughly a tenth of the nation's berries, though blueberries were first brought to the UK in 1952 and only reached supermarket shelves in the 1990s. UK blueberry sales rose 40 percent over three years, with projections indicating potential annual spending above £1 billion by the end of the decade if growth continues. A review of 12 studies reported 'whole body' health benefits from wild blueberries and noted endothelial function can improve within hours after a single serving or with regular intake.

Read at Mail Online