When you eat blueberries and they digest in your gastrointestinal tract, the smaller molecules move into the circulatory system. Then they shift back up into the brain to settle in brain tissues, passing the blood-brain barrier, Lila explains.
“It’s not one magic bullet,” Lila says. But when you eat a blueberry, your gut breaks it down into multiple compounds, which affect several parts of your body at the same time — helping your brain to work better, making you feel full and regulating your blood sugar.
A common element in most of the studies is that you need to eat blueberries regularly to receive the benefits, says Kitty Broihier, a dietitian and nutrition advisor to the Wild Blueberry Association of North America. In fact, research shows that regularly eating fruits and vegetables with flavonoids is linked with lower risk for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
How to get your blueberry benefits
If you have access to wild blueberries and can afford them, you might want to give them a try. Compared with cultivated blueberries, wild blueberries have 33 percent more anthocyanins and twice the amount of antioxidants than ordinary blueberries.
How much do you have to eat to get benefits? A lot of research on blueberries looks at consuming around 1 cup at a time, but there’s no set timeline on how often you have to eat them aside from frequencies listed in studies. The MIND diet recommends at least two servings, or cups, of berries a week, but you can’t go wrong with having a serving of this super-fruit every day.
If you’re not up for the fruit itself, blueberry powder can be stirred into smoothies, oatmeal or baked goods.
Frozen, Fresh or Dried?
All blueberries are good for you, according to the American Heart Association (AHA), but fresh or frozen may be best. Freezing fruit when picked at its peak locks in nutrients — especially that good-for-you anthocyanin — maybe even more than fresh produce.
“The freezing process does not degrade the anthocyanin in wild blueberries,” David Yarborough, an emeritus professor of horticulture at the University of Maine, said in an email.
Opting for dried blueberries? They lose some polyphenols and flavor during processing, which is when many manufacturers add corn syrup, sugar or oil, the AHA notes. Those additives could negate the health benefits of the blueberries.
The amount of anthocyanin in berries depends how they are dried, but drying them usually reduces the content.
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