Blueberries May Counteract Exercise Damage

Skeletal-muscle damage can be caused by unaccustomed or excessive exercise, and researchers have observed muscle dysfunction occurring due to an increase in reactive oxygen species, a.k.a. free radicals. Roger D. Hurst, from the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited, and colleagues exposed developing skeletal-muscle fibers, or myotubes, to various concentrations of fruit extracts along with two compounds that induce cellular stress. They found that blueberry extract protects muscle fibers in a dose-dependent fashion. The researchers suggest that the two antioxidant compounds, which contain malvidin galactoside and malvidin glucoside, “may be beneficial in alleviating muscle damage caused by oxidative stress.”

Hurst, R.D., et al. (2010). Blueberry fruit polyphenolics suppress oxidative stress-induced skeletal muscle cell damage in vitro. Mol Nutr & Food Res. 54(3): 353-363.

Almond Skins for Gut Health

Prebiotics are food ingredients that aid metabolism in the intestinal tract, and some studies have suggested that they help manage metabolic diseases in overweight and obese individuals. Giuseppina Mandalari, from the Institute of Food Research in the United Kingdom, and colleagues studied the effects of natural and blanched almond skins and found that eating almond skins upped the numbers of good bacteria, specifically Clostridium coccoides and Eubacterium rectale, in the gut. Explaining that almond skins contain a lot of dietary fiber and are high in plant-cell-wall polysaccharides, which provide the body with energy through fermentation and absorption of short-chain fatty acids, the team concludes, “Dietary fiber from almond skins altered the composition of gut bacteria, and almond skins resulting from industrial blanching could be used as potential prebiotics.”

Mandalari, G., et al. (2010). In vitro evaluation of the prebiotic properties of almond skins (Amygdalus communis L.). FEMS Microb Let. 304(2): 116-122.

—Dr. Bob Goldman
www.WorldHealth.net

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