Blueberries may lower cholesterol

KENTVILLE, Nova Scotia, June 20 (UPI) -- Blueberries help protect the brain, but the fruit may also have a heart protective effect by significantly lowering cholesterol, Canadian researchers say.

Lead scientist Wilhelmina Kalt of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada conducted tests on pigs fed a blueberry-supplemented diet. Blueberry-supplemented diets resulted in a reduction in total cholesterol including both low-density lipoprotein, or LDL the "bad" cholesterol and high-density lipoproteins, or HDL, the "good" cholesterol, Kalt said.

"In feeding trials, we found that blueberry supplementation reduced plasma cholesterol levels more effectively when the animals received a mostly plant-based diet than when they received a less heart-healthy diet," Kalt said in a statement. "The soy, oats and barley contained in these diets may have functioned synergistically with the blueberries to beneficially affect plasma lipids."

The study, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, found that the greatest reduction in total, LDL and HDL cholesterol levels was found in pigs fed a 2 percent blueberry diet equivalent to approximately 2 one-cup servings of blueberries in the human diet.

Pigs have levels of LDL similar to humans and are susceptible to diet-induced vascular disease, develop atherosclerotic plaques in the aorta and carotid artery and have a similar blood pressure and heart rate as humans, Kalt said.