Science pod cast - lingonberrie

Lingonberry

Whilst researching different medicinal plants we found a new up and comming plant called the Lingonberry. This is a plant in which ts berries are meant to prevent weight gain.

Berries are an amazing group of fruits with a wide variety of chemical compounds that confer benefits to our bodies.  

Berries contain a group of chemicals called polyphenols which are potent antioxidants that help protect the fruits tender flesh from the sun’s radiation.  These polyphenols also work effectively within our bodies to neutralise free radicals from environmental factors such as pollutants and from the metabolism of foods that we ingest.  Everyone dreams of being able to eat chocolate and pizza all day without putting on a pound, and now researchers could have found a simple way of making this dream a reality

 

The results of a study carried out by the Lund University in Sweden were recently published in the peer reviewed Journal of Nutrition and Metabolism which proved the efficacy of lingonberries and their ability to prevent weight gain.

In this study, mice were fed with a high fat diet for 13 weeks which was intended to mimic the fatty western diet. They were divided into groups and 20% of their diet comprised of berries. Each group of mice was fed with a different berry which included raspberries, blackberries, acai berries and lingonberries.

After three months, the mice that were fed a high fat lingonberry diet had the best results. Their weight gain was no different to the subjects that were fed a low fat diet and additionally their blood sugar and insulin levels were low as well.

The researchers concluded that lingonberries prevent the harmful effects of a high fat diet and suggest that lingonberries could be useful in preventing obesity, aid in weight loss goals, and its related disorders. However, an obvious limitation is that the study has not looked at the effect of lingonberry consumption on body measures and health outcomes in humans and crucially the mice that were fed lingonberries still put on weight with the high fat diet, just not as much. And obviously as the berries were only tested on mice it isnt 100% reliable for humans. 

Further more this amazing discovery comes with the problem that certain individuals mainly being celebrities are most likely to become addicted to these miracle berries as a method of prevent weight gain.  Even though this new discovery and finding is exciting, it should not be seen as an excuse and interpreted as a license to eat an unhealthy diet as long as you add lingonberrries! So if anyone is trying to lose weight, relying on these lingonberries for weight control is not a wise or healthy approach.