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Boston, Mass – UPDATE – Florida’s Tampa Tribune reports that Tufts’ blueberry studies are having a big impact on sales of the fruit around the world. According to the newspaper, “The once humble blueberry – ushered to fame this month by Tufts University scientists – never had it so good. Buyers pluck fresh berries from stores faster than merchants can stock them, leaving a trail of purple teeth from Tampa to Tokyo.”

   According to Kansas City merchant Chris Franklin, who was interviewed for the article, sales of blueberries have doubles at his marketplace. Nathan Fisher, of Tampa’s Nature’s Harvest Market agrees.

   “We’ve sold more this year than we have ever sold, bar none,” he told the newspaper.

The Original Story:

Tufts Researchers Report Blueberries May Reduce Memory Loss and Revers Loss of Coordination

Boston, Mass. — In the first major study on the effects of fruits and vegetables on reversing damage in nerve cells, a team of researchers from Tufts University and the USDA report that a diet rich in blueberry extract improved short term memory loss and reversed some loss of balance and coordination in aging rats.

   In a study published in the September 15th issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, the Tufts/USDA scientists say rats that consumed an extract of blueberries, strawberries and spinach every day showed improvements in short-term memory. Only the blueberry extract improved balance and coordination, however.

   Tufts’ findings have already received national attention. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, ABCNews.com and a variety of radio and news programs have already covered Tufts’ findings.

   A previous study done earlier this year by the Tufts/USDA researchers demonstrated that when compared to other fruits or vegetables, blueberries have the highest amount of antioxidants. By consuming a supplement comparable to one cup of blueberries a day the rats, equivalent in age to 70 to 75-year-olds, were more coordinated.

   "Motor behavior is one of the first things to decline as you age, " said Dr. James Joseph, the principal investigator of the study and a scientist at the Neuroscience Laboratory at Tufts University's USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging. "The improvements we saw in coordination and balance are really significant. In other studies, little else have reversed these deficits in motor function."

    Some highlights of the study include: The rats that received the fruit and vegetable extracts learned faster than the other rats, and their motor skills also improved. In one of the tests, six-month-old rats could stay on a rod an average of 14 seconds. Older rats fell of after six seconds, but the blueberry-supplemented older rats could stay on for 10 seconds. This study is the first to show that fruits and vegetables actually reverse dysfunctions in behavior and nerve cells.