Berried treasure

Love your heart. It seems a spoonful of strawberries makes the cholesterol go down. According to a new study published in Metabolism, eating strawberries daily caused a significant reduction in LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol. Even better, the participants’ LDL levels were less prone to oxidation, the chemical process that really damages your heart and arteries. Another study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that a high intake of strawberries lowered both total and LDL cholesterol in both sexes. The berry-rich diet produced a 3.5 per cent reduction in total cholesterol in women and 2.6 per cent for men; the figures were similar for LDL cholesterol, at 3.2 and 3.1 per cent, respectively.

Strawberries also supply potassium, which regulates blood pressure, and may help blood vessels relax in people with hardening of the arteries; plus they have some power to protect brain cells against the damage that occurs with stroke.

Fight cancer. Along with heaps of vitamin C (gram for gram, strawberries contain more than oranges), fibre and folate, strawberries have particular disease-fighting antioxidants that few other fruits have, called anthocyanins: these are the plant chemicals that give strawberries their gorgeous ruby-red colour. Anthocyanins reduce inflammation (which is a major symptom in many chronic diseases, including cancer), provide powerful anti-ageing properties that protect and repair cells from unstable oxygen molecules called free radicals, curb the spread of cancer cells, and reduce tumour growth. In test-tube experiments, strawberry compounds have been shown to interfere with the development of human leukaemia, lung, breast, and prostate cancers.

Two other strawberry-specific antioxidants, ellagitannins and lupeol, are effective anti-inflammatories and anti-carcinogens, especially against colon and cervical cancers. A study in Cancer Research has also shown that eating strawberries, along with other fruits, including raspberries, restored 20 per cent of carcinogen-damaged genes to normal. Other research suggests they could possibly increase cancer cells’ susceptibility to anti-cancer drugs.

Keep your eyes on the prize. Eating foods that are low on the Glycaemic Index (GI) is more than just a smart way to maintain your weight. A study from the Human Nutrition Research Center on Ageing at Tufts University in Boston, USA, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shows that a low-GI diet also reduces the risk of age-related macular degeneration (MD) by 17 per cent, due to the high antioxidant content of low-GI foods. And you can’t get much lower GI than strawberries: their tiny carbohydrate content means you can enjoy them by the bowlful, and they will have almost zero impact on blood glucose, making them a delight for diabetics, too.