Busting belly fat may be yet another of blueberries’ health benefits.

    A new study shows rats who ate a diet rich in blueberries lost abdominal fat -- the kind of fat linked to heart disease and diabetes -- as well as experienced other health benefits like lowered cholesterol and improved glucose control even if their diet wasn’t otherwise heart-healthy.

    "Some measurements were changed by blueberry even if the rats were on a high-fat diet," researcher E. Mitchell Seymour, MS, of the University of Michigan’s Cardioprotection Research Laboratory, says in a news release.

    Researchers say the results suggest that antioxidant-rich blueberries may change how the body stores and processes glucose or sugar for energy, thereby reducing the risk of both heart disease and diabetes.

    "The benefits of eating fruits and vegetables have been well researched, but our findings in regard to blueberries show the naturally occurring chemicals they contain, such as anthocyanins, show promise in mitigating these health conditions," researcher Steven Bolling, MD, of the University of Michigan, says in the release.

    In the study, presented at Experimental Biology 2009, researchers fed rats bred to become obese either a high-fat or low-fat diet enriched with whole blueberry powder or carbohydrates as 2% of their total diet.

    After 90 days, the rats fed blueberries had less abdominal fat, lower cholesterol, and improved glucose control and insulin sensitivity. The latter two factors are markers of how well the body processes sugar for energy and are related to diabetes risk.

    These health benefits of blueberries were evident in rats fed both high- and low-fat diets enriched with the blueberry powder. But the benefits were greatest among those who ate a low-fat diet.

    In addition to the other heart health benefits of blueberries, those fed the low-fat blueberry diet also lost body weight and fat mass compared to those on the high-fat diet.

    Although more research is needed to confirm these results in humans, a related study presented at the same conference showed that men with risk factors for heart disease who drank wild blueberry juice for three weeks seemed to experience slight improvements in glucose and insulin control.

    消除腹部脂肪可能并不是藍莓的保健功能，因為新研究發現的攝入豐富藍莓后的小鼠減去腹部的脂肪是一類與心臟病和糖尿病有關的脂肪。即使小鼠自身的飲食對于心臟并不健康，同時食用藍莓也能降低膽固醇和促進對血糖控制。密西根大學心肌研究實驗室的研究員E.Mitchell Seymour在新聞發布中提出，即使小鼠攝入高脂肪膳食，藍莓也能改變一些心臟機能的測量結果。

    研究員認為其原因很可能是具有強抗氧化性的藍莓能影響人體中糖類的能量代謝和貯藏，從而減低了患心臟病和糖尿病的危險。

    來自密西根大學的研究員Steven Bolling在另一新聞發布中提到，對于食用水果和蔬菜對人體健康帶來的有利之處已經得到了廣泛地深入研究，而我們對于藍莓的研究旨在對其含有的天然化學成分分析，如藍莓中的花青素能減輕心臟病和糖尿病等不利于健康的狀況。

    2009年發表在《生物實驗》的研究中，研究人員利用高脂肪和低脂肪的膳食把小鼠培育成肥胖體形,并分成四組，每兩組分別加入質量為總攝入量2%的藍莓粉和碳水化合物。90天以后，喂養了藍莓的小鼠的腹部脂肪得到減少，膽固醇降低，血糖控制和胰島素敏感性得到提高。

    后兩個結果均影響體內糖類能量的代謝以及與患糖尿病的風險有關。在都加入了藍莓粉的高脂肪和低脂肪膳食培育的小鼠身上證明了藍莓的保健功能。

    而且，藍莓的保健功效在低脂肪膳食的小鼠身上得到最大得體現。除了藍莓對心臟健康的功能以外，均攝入了藍莓粉的低脂肪膳食小鼠與高脂肪膳食小鼠相比，其體重和脂肪的減少更為明顯。

    盡管藍莓的這些保健功效仍需要進一步地在人體上進行研究才能得以證實，一個在同一會議中發表的相關研究表示，有患心臟病風險的人在飲用野生藍莓汁三周后，其血糖和胰島素的控制得到輕微的促進。