Posted on 04/25/2010 4:39:00 PM PDT by decimon
Chokeberry bushes have for centuries been residents of eastern deciduous forests where their bright red and dark purple fruits continue to be favorite snacks of local bird species. Native Americans have also traditionally eaten dried chokeberries and prepared teas from parts of the plant, and several domesticated varieties now grace contemporary lawns and gardens from coast to coast. However, the chokeberry (Aronia) is enjoying a new claim-to-fame as a potentially powerful antioxidant, and can now be found for sale in the dietary supplement and "health food" aisles of your local pharmacies and grocery stores.
What makes the humble chokeberry so healthful? Scientists think the answer lies in their unusually high levels of substances called anthocyanins (from the Greek anthos + kyanos meaning dark blue). There are many different anthocyanins in these colorful berries, but they all function as antioxidants – originally protecting the chokeberry seed from sunshine-induced oxidative stress. And when we eat them, they also appear to protect our bodies from a variety of damaging situations, including exposure to pollution and metabolically-derived free radicals. Indeed, a growing body of scientific literature has shown promising effects of chokeberry consumption on diseases ranging from cancer to obesity. These health-promoting effects may be due to the potent anti-inflammatory properties of anthocyanins, as uncontrolled inflammation is now universally recognized as a common thread in many of our most prevalent and deadly diseases. In addition, certain anthocyanins – including those found in chokeberry – have also been shown to improve blood sugar and the function of insulin.
To better understand how chokeberries influence health, Drs. Bolin Qin and Richard Anderson from the US Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, MD studied what happens when prediabetic rats are fed chokeberry extracts for an extended period of time. The results of their research will be presented on April 25 at the Experimental Biology 2010 meeting in Anaheim, CA. This presentation is part of the scientific program of the American Society for Nutrition, home of the world's leading nutrition researchers.
The researchers first made 18 male rats "prediabetic" or insulin insensitive by feeding them a fructose-rich diet for 6 weeks. Then they randomized the animals to continue drinking either pure water or water spiked with low or high levels of chokeberry extract (CellBerry®, Integrity Nutraceuticals International). After drinking this water for 6 weeks, the groups were compared in terms of body weight, body fat, blood glucose regulation, and molecular markers for inflammation.
Qin and Anderson found that at the end of the study the rats consuming the chokeberry-spiked water weighed less than the controls; both levels of chokeberry had the same effect in this regard. Similar beneficial effects of chokeberry consumption were found for body fat (specifically, that of the lower abdominal region). They also discovered that animals that had been drinking chokeberry extract had lower blood glucose and reduced levels of plasma triglycerides, cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol when compared to the control animals. These alterations would theoretically lead to lower risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease in humans. And to add even more evidence for a healthful impact of this super-berry, the researchers documented numerous alterations in expression of genes that would likely lead to reduced chronic inflammation and perhaps even lower cancer risk. For instance, drinking chokeberry extract lowered expression of the gene coding for interleukin-6 (IL-6), a protein that normally triggers inflammation following trauma or infection. Chronic overproduction of IL-6 has been documented in many diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, and atherosclerosis and is thought to be a partial cause of these conditions.
Of course, human studies will be needed before scientists can declare whether we derive the same health benefits from the chokeberry, but Qin and Anderson believe that their study "provides evidence that the chokeberry extract inhibits weight gain in insulin-resistant animals and that it modulates multiple genes associated with adipose tissue growth, blood glucose regulation, and inflammatory pathways." A final word to the wise: raw chokeberries are exceptionally bitter, so don't be tempted to harvest the shrubs in your backyard. Instead, look for this unassuming berry in fruit juice blends, jellies, and sweetened syrups.
###
Drs. Qin and Anderson are federal researchers in the Diet, Genomics, and Immunology Laboratory at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, a component of the US Department of Agriculture. This study was supported, in part, by Integrity Nutraceuticals International (South Spring Hill, TN).
Bitter pill ping.
It’s the new and improved Montmorency Cherry that was all the rage last season! ;)
How long till the Obama administration bans chokeberry?
We will all be looking for natural remedies when 0care begins impacting us with doctor shortages.
A great day for rats!
I’ll go for the wine....
Now this wouldn’t be considered an advertisement, right?? And it won’t cure ya, right??
Cure ya? What is 'ya.' ;-)
I don't see any claim to any cure.
Brite future for skinny democRATs.
I would presume the birds don’t eat them because they’re bitter .. just as the research showed.
Birds like sweet berries.
can humans eat anything birds eat,safely
None of my rats seem to be inflamed!
Any relation to the Federation of Planets?
Birds like sweet berries.
According to the Wikipedia article, birds can't tell they are bitter: "The fruits are eaten by birds (birds do not taste astringency and feed on them readily), which then disperse the seeds in their droppings."
Is that where Obama gets his lip color?
Well .. you can rely on Wikipedia if you want, but they have a whole section on Statue of Limitations - looks like they left out a letter in the word Statute ..??
So .. I don’t rely on Wikipedia for ANY INFORMATION.
I have no idea!
CellBerry™
Cellular Oxidation Support Modulator*
What is CellBerry™?
CellBerry is derived from the chokeberry plant, also known as Aronia, indigenous to eastern North America.Known for its uniquely tart and tangy flavor, our highly refined extract of Aronia Melanocarpa undergoes a proprietary extraction process to standardize for high levels of anthocyanins.These extremely potent compounds have been shown in clinical research to have a host of antioxidant and other health enhancing benefits.*
How Does It Work?
The active compounds found in Aronia have long been known to have potent properties on health.Levels of anthocyanins and flavonoids are over five times greater than those found in cranberries, and boast years of research in the areas of cardiovascular, circulatory and immune health.*Aronia Melonocarpa specifically contains a deep purple almost black pigment that arises out of the dense phenolic anthocyanins.The sheer concentration of anthocyanins and proanthocyanin content is one of the highest values recorded among any plant.According to one study (Wu et al 2004) Aronia has one of the highest ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) values ever recorded at 16,100 micromoles of TE per 100 grams.
Application and Serving Size CellBerry is appropriate in a product to enhance overall health and provide extra protection from oxidative stress.* It can be administered in a capsule, tablet, powder or liquid.The recommended serving size for CellBerry is 50 mg of a 10% extract twice daily.
* This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Say that someone monitoring their blood sugar level (not me) were to try this CellBerry. If CellBerry reduces their glucose level then that should be evident, no?
sfl
“We will all be looking for natural remedies when 0care begins impacting us with doctor shortages.”
If there is a benefit to be had from this atrocious Obamacare (and you have to look really hard to find one), it might be that people will start to take care of their own health again, instead of living sedentary lifestyles with bad habits, and then expecting a doctor to give them a pill to fix all of that.
This study was supported, in part, by Integrity Nutraceuticals International (South Spring Hill, TN).
My money is on advertisement.
It should be obvious. It’s a question of how much.
Thanks.
No!!!
Bird physiology is very different from humans.
Even mammals vary greatly in their metabolism.
Birds eat hot chili peppers and don’t know they are HOT!
What we don't get, birds do. Rose breasted Grosbeaks have made this a stop on their migration route. They come by the thousands, stay a couple days and move on.
We don't mind, they are interesting and save us from a mess on the lawn. BTW There are ckokecherries coming up all over the woods around us.
I’ve been doing that for years already. I have bad reactions to a lot of RX’s. Not that some vits and minerals don’t have side effects...they are usually less harmful.
And having Fibromyalgia for 20 yrs has taught me to keep my weight down, and stay reasonably active.
I see my doc 2 times a year to get my 3 RX’s refilled or if something unexpected happens. I grew up poor, lived as a poor divorced mom for 10 years...I learned to make do. Made to much at $3.50 an hr for even food stamps. LOL
“My money is on advertisement.”
Who do you think pays for all those studies of pharmaceuticals? Of course it’s the pharma companies themselves.
The pharma companies spend more on advertising than just about any other industry.
Just this morning I was thinking of destroying some bushes that are growing in the wrong spot (for me) on my property. Guess I'll just transplant them instead now.
Did you feed the peppers to the birds yourself ..??
I mean .. really .. where would the birds get the chili peppers ..?? Your garden ..??
Chiltepin peppers are a wild pepper in Arizona and Texas!
The plants are hard to grow, but the birds eat the peppers and spread the seeds.
Interesting! Thanks for the link - I didn’t know birds were attracted to that type of food .. always believed they went for sweet things.
I used to eat those when I was a kid... I’ve been healthy ever since...
So the researchers are "federal researchers", i.e., government employees, and part of this study was funded by an apparently private company called "Integrity Nutraceuticals." The other part of the study, I suppose, was funded by taxpayers.
The article itself is a press release advertising the research and the company. Doesn't inspire confidence. If you follow the "FASEB" link in the press release to the home page, you'll see that it calls itself an "advocacy group" -- a lobby! What is "Integrity Nutraceutical's" relationship to this lobby?
http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsATemp.aspx?articleid=23591&zoneid=11
Integrity Nutraceuticals, a worldwide supplier of innovative and specialty nutraceutical science-based ingredients, is pleased to announce that they have received NSF’s Good Manufacturing Practices Certification.
NSF International, an independent, not-for-profit organization, audits according to the only American National Standard for Dietary Supplement and are consistent with the requirements that FDA has laid out in the Final Rule, 21 CFR § 111. This certification reflects Integrity’s continued commitment to excellence by ensuring the utmost quality of their products.
21 CFR 111 Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) is newly enacted regulatory requirements for the dietary supplement industry. CGMPs provide guidelines for necessary processes, procedures and documentation to assure the product produced has the identity, strength, composition, quality and purity it is represented to possess. During the NSF certification process, a plant audit is conducted to verify compliance with these cGMPs and NSF will conduct periodic audits at Integrity to ensure continued conformance.
"This is an incredible accomplishment for Integrity and one we have been working on for a number of years. Our vision from startup has been quality through verification,” stated Tim Romero, President of Integrity. “By achieving the NSF GMP Certification, Integrity has demonstrated our steadfast commitment to supplying the highest quality products."
Everyone in the supplements industry knows that the FDA and "Big Pharma" are out to regulate them. As in all government regulation of private industry, only the larger, more established firms will be able to afford compliance with the new testing requirements, new labeling laws, new processing mandates, etc., and this is usually just fine with them...it assures that they cannot be knocked off their perch by some new upstart company with a better product but with higher costs of production. We'll soon see retiring government regulators become the new presidents of "private" supplement companies; and conversely, former senior management from supplement companies will step into powerful regulatory positions in Washington. This will have the effect of serving the economic interests of the already established companies to the detriment of innovative upstarts, and was studied and written about at great length by an economist named George Stigler. He appropriately named it "Regulatory Capture" since private industry under this sort of system has a powerful incentive to try to "capture" the regulatory agency to serve its own purposes. This is not a matter of corruption on the part of the regulators or the industry leaders, but rather a problem that occurs precisely because of the system of incentives created by government regulation of private industry.
We'll be seeing a lot more of that in the very near future as manufacturers of supplements begin to jockey for position in the economic pecking order as they are mandated to "partner" with government. Of course, as in all government/private-industry partnership, it will have the affect of killing innovation and the price reductions that accompany the constant introduction of new products on the free market. We won't have a chance to vote on any of this; it will simply be done, though it will be rationalized by the left (and the early compliers in the industry) as a "quality control" measure for the sake of the public.
Don't think for a moment that once government gets its hands on the food supplements industry that it will provide a possible alternative to zerocare. It could be an alternative to zerocare only on condition that it NOT be controlled and regulated by government. Once it's under regulation, food supplements will start to climb in price (no more "cut-throat competition" to drive prices down for poor people); there will be fewer new products; fewer improvements in existing products; many marginal products that only a few people buy will disappear from the market entirely; and -- who knows -- perhaps "in the public interest" zerocare will require that doctors write prescriptions for supplements. This will be found necessary after some contrived "catastrophe" (perhaps stage-managed) in which many people are made ill or die from taking some sort of "unapproved" food supplement.
I see this very interesting press release as a red flag; yet another warning (innocent looking at first) of government intrusion into our lives.
As for the science in the press release, chokeberry has been researched for a while, and also appears as an ingredient (usually called "Aronia") on a number of products.
An interesting site to check out is "Life Extension":
http://www.lef.org/
Here are some pages with research links and a sample product label with chokeberry ("aronia") listed as an ingredient.
Never trust "government science" to be on the cutting edge of anything.
http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=816&query=chokeberry&hiword=CHOKEBERRIES%20chokeberry%20
Polyphenols are found not only in fruits and vegetables such as the blueberry, but also in cocoa, tea, and the exotic fruit known as the chokeberry. A number of studies show that consuming polyphenols from a variety of sources may be more healthful than limiting ourselves to plants foods typically found in the Western diet . . .
http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/Item00994/Super-Polyphenol-Extracts-with-CocoaGold.html
Supplement Facts Serving Size 1 vegetarian capsule Servings Per Container 30 Amount Per Serving CocoaGold™ Cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.) extract (bean) [standardized to 45% polyphenols (100 mg)] 224 mg Apple (Pyrus malus) Polyphenol extract (skin, root and bark) [std. to 40% phloridzin (80 mg) and 30% polyphenols (60 mg)] 200 mg Aronia (Aronia melanocarpa) extract (fruit) [standardized to 15% anthocyanins (17.25 mg)] 115 mg Green Tea (Camellia sinensis) Decaffeinated extract (leaf) [std. to 98% polyphenols by UV (98 mg), 45% EGCG by HPLC (45 mg)] 100 mg Other ingredients: microcrystalline cellulose, silica, magnesium stearate, vegetable cellulose. Contains tree nuts (cocoa beans). Contains corn. This product contains NO milk, egg, fish, peanuts, crustacean shellfish, (lobster, crab, shrimp) soybeans, wheat, yeast, gluten, or rice. Contains NO sugar, and no artificial sweeteners, flavors, colors, or preservatives.
http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=8947&query=chokeberry&hiword=CHOKEBERRIES%20chokeberry%20
Direct vasoactive and vasoprotective properties of anthocyanin-rich extracts.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) play a critical role in the impairment of nitric oxide-mediated vascular functions and overall pathogenesis associated with cardiovascular disease. Plant pigment anthocyanins are exceptionally potent oxygen radical scavengers that produce beneficial effects in diseases outside the cardiovascular system. We examined for the first time the potential coronary vasoactive and vasoprotective properties of three anthocyanin enhanced extracts prepared from chokeberry (Ck), bilberry (B), or elderberry (E) . . .
J Appl Physiol. 2006 Apr;100(4):1164-70
Now that we have chokecherries, do we get rid of the acai berries? What about blueberries and cranberries? Are they passe now, to?
I’m just trying to stay currant.
FASEB Releases Compilation of Resources Aimed at Enhancing Diversity of Scientific Workforce
And now they are doing advertisements for Integrity Nutraceuticals International.
At least I didn't find anything on global warming.
bump for reading later
Thanks!
Bookmark
“I’m just trying to stay currant.”
*groan* Good one!
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