Blueberry skins might have an important role in controlling cholesterol, according to US scientists. An Agricultural Research Service (ARS) study found that feeding hamsters a diet extremely high in cholesterol, but supplemented with freeze-dried skins of rabbiteye blueberries, produced plasma total cholesterol levels 37 percent lower than those of hamsters fed a control diet.
Levels of LDL, ‘bad’ cholesterol, were 19 percent lower in the blueberry-supplemented hamsters.
In addition, researchers found that hamsters eating the blueberry-enhanced food fared better than hamsters fed the high-cholesterol diet augmented instead with the lipid-lowering drug ciprofibrate.
The results may be linked to constituents in blueberry skins that can activate a protein involved in the breakdown and import of fats, according to lead scientist Agnes Rimando. Among these constituents are resveratrol and pterostilbene, which have been cited for their antioxidant properties.
The researchers used 10 hamsters per treatment group, as well as a control diet containing the high amounts of cholesterol, but no supplements.
Rimando collaborated in another study, also described at Sunday's meeting, which demonstrated pterostilbene's potential to fight colon cancer.
In that research, led by Rutgers University scientist Bandaru S. Reddy, nine rats fed a diet supplemented with 40 parts per million of pterostilbene showed 57 percent fewer induced colon lesions than nine other rats fed an unsupplemented diet.
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