How People Came to Believe Blueberries Are the Healthiest Fruit

Jim,

I don’t like blueberries. Sometimes when I tell people that, they say, “but they have antioxidants!”

If I never eat blueberries, will my life be shorter, or more oxidized than a blueberry lover?

Asking for a friend,

Jaime

Jaime,

I was expecting that my answer would be a simple no, don’t worry about it. And it still is, but the reason is a lot more interesting than I imagined.

In looking at the research, I was surprised that there’s a serious and bizarre amount of interesting evidence in support of eating a lot of blueberries. From things like improving memory to reducing depression to preventing diabetes—I’m not talking about a few studies. There are actually nutrition scientists who have devoted their careers to studying blueberries.

The research includes findings like: Rats who ate blueberries for two months showed improvements in and did better than their peers at remembering how to navigate a water maze. They became on a narrow rod and walking on a rotating rod. And lest these findings be dismissed as a coincidence, researchers even cut open the heads of the rats and saw blueberry pigments in their brains. The blue anthocyanins—among the plant chemicals widely attributed with health benefits due to antioxidant the cerebellum, cortex, hippocampus, and striatum of berry-fed rats.