Berries Reduce Heart Attack Risk in Women

Share this with a friend

Follow us to good health!

According to researchers at Harvard University, young and middle-aged women who eat high levels of anthocyanins-- the so-called flavonoids present in red and blue fruit like strawberries and blueberries-- reduce their heart attack risk considerably, compared to those who don't.

Specifically, those women were found to cut their risk by 32% during 18 years of study follow-up. Furthermore, women who had at least four servings of strawberries or blueberries every week demonstrated a 34% heart attack risk reduction compared to women who rarely ate these fruits as part of their diet

The research appears online in the journal Circulation.

Said the researchers:

"Growing evidence supports the beneficial effects of dietary flavonoids on endothelial function and blood pressure, suggesting that flavonoids might be more likely than other dietary factors to lower the risk of [coronary heart disease] in predominantly young women."

The data for this study came from the 93,600 women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study II, who reported how much of what they ate of various foods and their lifestyle factors every 4 years, beginning with enrollment in 1991. At that time participants were between the ages of 25 and 42.

Source: MedPage Today