With their beautiful, alluring blue-purple hue, sweet berry taste and a list of health benefits that just wont quit, one might be excused for forgetting about the rest of the blueberry plant altogether. A new medical study suggests that we may be missing one of the blueberry’s best parts.
Published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and announced at EurekAlert, a team of doctors at University of Miyazaki in Japan has found a chemical extracted from blueberry leaves to stop Hepatitis C replication in its tracks.
The berries themselves have earned a roster of accolades for their dietary role in providing benefits ranging from cardiovascular and urinary tract health, to vision improvement, as well as the prevention of cancer, inflammation and stroke.
But it’s the leaves of the blueberry plant — one particular species found primarily in the southeastern United States — that caught the attention of the research team in Japan.
The chemical extracted from the leaves, proanthocyandin, is determined to be effective in stopping the Hepatitis C virus from replicating. Impacting millions annually, the disease currently has no vaccine, and existing treatments have both a limited success rate and a high potential for significant side effect.
Proanthocyandin, a similar compound to the helpful polyphenols found in red wine, could itself in high doses pose a toxicity risk. But the current study found that a dose well below the risk level — at 1 percent the amount where it would cause a toxic reaction — shows great promise for application in nutritional supplement form to ward off the disease.
Photo courtesy of Centers for Disease Control.
