Flashback Friday: The Advantages of Açai vs. Blueberries for Artery Perform

Beneath is an approximation of this video’s audio content material. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, photos, and quotes to which Dr. Greger could also be referring, watch the above video.

“Plant-based diets…have been discovered to scale back the chance of” a few of our main causes of dying and incapacity. “Research have proven that the longest dwelling and least dementia-prone populations subsist on plant-based diets…” So, why give attention to simply this one plant for mind well being and efficiency—açai berries? Effectively, “meals wealthy in polyphenols [appear to] enhance mind well being,” and açai berries have plenty of polyphenols and antioxidants; so, perhaps they’d assist.

However, if you happen to’re simply taking a look at polyphenols, there are over a dozen meals which have extra per serving, and it doesn’t should be black elderberry. Common fruits, like plums, have extra; just a few spoonfuls of flax seeds, just a few squares of darkish chocolate, and even only a cup of espresso, has extra.

When it comes to antioxidants, sure, açai berries could have ten occasions extra antioxidant content material than extra typical fruits, like peaches and papayas; 5 occasions greater than strawberries—however akin to blackberries. In actual fact, blackberries seem to have much more antioxidants, and are cheaper and extra broadly obtainable.

Ah, however açai berries don’t simply have potential mind advantages—for instance, defending the lungs in opposition to “hurt induced by cigarette smoke.” However you all do not forget that examine, proper? That’s the one the place “addition of açai [berries] to cigarettes has a protecting impact in opposition to emphysema in [smoking] mice.” That’s not very useful. There’s this lengthy checklist of impressive-looking advantages, till you dig a little bit deeper.

For instance, I used to be excited to see “discount of coronary illness danger as a result of [a] vasodilation impact,” however much less excited once I pulled the examine, and came upon that they had been speaking a couple of “vasodilator impact…in [the] mesenteric vascular mattress of the rat.” However, there hadn’t been any research on açai berries and artery perform in people, till now.

Give some chubby males a smoothie containing about two-thirds of a cup of frozen açai pulp, and a half a banana, versus an artificially-colored placebo smoothie with the banana however no açai; you get a major enchancment in artery perform inside two hours of consumption, which lasts no less than for six hours. That one- or two-point bump is clinically important. These strolling round with only a level greater go on to have 13% fewer cardiovascular occasions, like deadly coronary heart assaults.

You will get the identical impact from wild blueberries, although, a couple of point-and-a-half bump two hours after wild blueberry consumption—an impact peaking and plateauing at about one-and-a-half cups of blueberries, with two-and-a-half or three-and-a-half cups exhibiting no additional advantages.

What about cooked blueberries? Right here’s the identical wild blueberry drink impact we noticed earlier than. However what if you happen to baked the blueberries right into a bun, like a blueberry muffin? Similar dramatic enchancment in artery perform.

Cocoa can do it, too. One tablespoon of cocoa will get you a couple of level, and two tablespoons is sort of a whopping 4 factors—that’s like double the berries.

One-and-a-quarter cups price of multicolored grapes gave a pleasant increase in artery perform, however sufficient to counter an “acute endothelial insult”—a sudden assault on the susceptible inside layer of our arteries? They selected a sausage-and-egg McMuffin meal; they weren’t messing round. With out the grapes, that meant reducing artery perform practically in half inside an hour, and the artery stayed stiffened and crippled three hours later. However, eat that McMuffin with all these grapes, and hardly any impact.

Eat a meal with hamburger meat, and artery perform drops after the meal. However, eat that very same meal with some spices, together with a teaspoon and a half of turmeric, and your artery perform will get higher.

What about orange juice? 4 cups a day for 4 weeks, and no change in artery perform. Ah, however that was industrial orange juice, from focus. What about freshly squeezed orange juice? Right here’s the earlier than and, right here’s the after—nonetheless nothing. That’s one of many causes berries are the healthiest fruits.

Need a beverage that may enhance your artery perform? Inexperienced tea. Two cups of inexperienced tea, and also you get that very same cocoa impact, practically 4 factors inside simply half-hour. And, that very same loopy impact you get with inexperienced tea, you get with black tea. Twice as highly effective an impact because the açai berries.

So, why give attention to simply that one plant? Effectively, the true purpose, presumably, is that the creator owns a patent on an açai-based dietary complement.

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