Benefits to the brain from eating berries
By Margaret Rogers
Scientists report in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that there is strong evidence that 
eating berries is great for the brain and may also help to prevent age-related memory loss.
Berries such as blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and other berry fruits all have beneficial effects on the brain according to the article by Barbara Shukitt-Hale Ph.D. and Marshall G. Miller. They note that as we now have longer life expectancy there are growing concerns about the human toll along with rising health care costs. Along with longer lifespans comes the risk of age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of mental decline.
Several recent research studies show that eating berries can benefit the brain as it grows older, the authors explain. They have extensively reviewed studies on this topic to determine the weight of evidence of the benefits obtained from the consumption of berry fruits.
What they found was that berry fruits help to maintain a healthy brain in several ways. Free radicals are the enemy when it comes to damage of brain cells but the high levels of antioxidants which are found in berry fruits protect these cells from this type of damage.
Shukitt-Hale and Miller report in their article that berry fruits alter the way neurons in the brain communicate, which prevents inflammation in the brain that plays a part in neuronal damage. This can result in an improvement to both cognition and motor control.
The authors conclude that more research will determine whether these benefits arise as a result of one individual compound which is shared between all berry fruits or if the unique combination of chemicals in each berry fruit have similar effects.
