Grab Blueberries for Better Blood Pressure

In a recent study of people with health conditions, those who had freeze-dried blueberries added to their diets every day experienced significant improvements in both their systolic and diastolic blood pressure after just 8 weeks.

Blue-Blooded Benefits
Researchers think that nutrients in blueberries may help soften blood pressure by increasing body levels of enzymes that relax blood vessels. These enzymes also support healthy endothelium -- those fragile cells that line blood vessel walls. And the blueberry lovin' may be particularly helpful for people with sub-par health. In the study, all of the men and women were obese (body mass index of 30 or more) and had metabolic syndrome -- a cluster of health risk factors that can lead to diabetes or heart disease. 

Taking the Pressure Off
The amount of blueberries the people in the study consumed was pretty high -- the equivalent of over 2 cups of fresh berries per day. But blueberries aren't the only way to get some blood-pressure-friendly berry nutrition into your diet. Similar benefits have also been seen in studies with cranberries, strawberries, raspberries, and lingonberries as well as other fresh fruit. So get your winter fruit on! 

Boost the Benefits of Blueberries

Get more nutrition from your blueberries by tossing them into a steamy bowl of oatmeal instead of cold cereal and milk.

Why? Because a recent study revealed that combining blueberries and milk in the same meal could block your body's absorption of the antioxidant goodness in the berries.

The ABCs of Antioxidant Absorption
Blueberries are packed with powerful phenolic antioxidants that help keep you young by combating oxidative stress. Problem is, these superchemicals don't always make it from your mouth to your bloodstream; you probably absorb less than 5 percent of the phenolics you get from foods. And certain food combos don't help. When researchers had volunteers eat blueberries with a chaser of water or milk, the blueberry-and-milk combo resulted in significantly fewer phenolics being absorbed compared with the berries-and-water combo. 

When Milk Doesn't Do You Good
Researchers believe that the proteins in milk somehow interfere with antioxidant absorption. And other milk research has already shown similar results with tea and chocolate phenolics. So what to do? Skim milk in your cereal may be an option. Although skim milk still interfered with phenolic absorption in the blueberry study, it interfered less than whole milk. You could also wait a couple of hours between eating blueberries and having milk. Ready for a milk-free blueberry fest?

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JdP> Yet Yogurt (proteins) must be different (changed during the culturig of milk into yogurt, I imagine) because other studies show that Yogurt and Blueberries work better, synergistically, better when eaten together.  As I posted, here, previously.

So I wonder what happens with my favorite cottage cheese/blueberries/almonds snack?  Well, at least the cottage cheese is fat free--that should help, like the skim milk. 

Yogurt has been found to be beneficial with blueberries.
In fact both benefits of blueberries and yogurt are enhanced when eaten together.
So, I would think cottage might be different than milk.