Cranberry Shows Heart Health Benefits

Cranberry containing 835 milligrams of total polyphenols and 94 mg of anthocyanins was associated with improvements in a measure of arterial stiffness called carotid femoral pulse wave velocity.  Joe Vita, from Boston University (Massachusetts, USA), and colleagues observed “a highly significant effect of cranberry juice on stiffness of the central aorta, which is increasingly recognized as an important measure of vascular function with relevance to cardiovascular disease.” The team completed an acute pilot study with no placebo involving 15 participants, finding that cranberry juice (480 mL) was associated with improvements in both brachial artery flow-mediated dilation, from 7.7% before ingestion to 8.7% four hours after ingestion, as well as digital pulse amplitude tonometry ratio from to 0.10 to 0.23.