Blueberries are truly exceptional fruits, both from the point of view of their taste and their positive effects on health. In addition to their beneficial actions on heart health, research published in a prestigious scientific journal suggests that these berries may also help maintain a healthy weight.
From a physiological point of view, the accumulation of fat in adipose tissue serves to store a large amount of energy that can later be used to support vital functions during periods of nutritional deficiency. This ingenious mechanism is based on the presence of adipocytes, a type of cell that has the property of being able to accumulate large quantities of lipids: an adipocyte can grow to multiply its size by 50! The number-
ber of these adipocytes gradually increases during childhood and adolescence and then stabilizes and remains constant for the rest of our lives, around30 billions of adipocytes per person. On the other hand, even if the number of adipocytes usually no longer varies in adulthood, recent studies indicate that approximately 10 % of these cells are replaced each year.
Block the multiplication of fatty cells
The storage function of adipocytes is adapted to an environment where food is scarce and difficult to access. In our modern societies, it is rather the opposite situation that prevails: we have easy and almost unlimited access to a great abundance of food, and this, without having to make any real effort to be able to take advantage of it. These conditions of abundance therefore favor the overconsumption of food and the excessive accumulation of fat.
When excess fat exceeds the storage capacity of adipocytes, adipose tissue forms new cells from immature adipocytes, called preadipocytes. This adipose hyperplasia, typically observed in obese people, can multiply by the number of adipocytes and have serious health consequences. In fact, adipocytes are not just fat warehouses: these cells also secrete a multitude of inflammatory factors harmful to the functioning of the body, leading to the development of various serious pathologies such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer. Maintaining a healthy weight is therefore not only about not overloading the fat cells already present in our body, but, just as important, avoiding the production of new fat cells which will aggravate these health risks posed by being overweight.
Blueberries a delicious slimming ally
It goes without saying that a reduction caloric intake, combined with regular physical activity, remains the best way to maintain a healthy weight. It is however interesting to note that certain foods could participate in restricting fat accumulation by specifically blocking the transformation of preadipocytes into mature adipocytes. For example, a study shows that the addition of blueberry polyphenols to preadipocytes blocks their maturation into adipocytes and the accumulation of fat that accompanies this transformation. These results are in agreement with previous observations showing that animals fed a diet containing blueberry polyphenols had a lower proportion of abdominal fat.
Blueberries did not really not finished surprising us!
Source
Moghe S et al. Effect of blueberry polyphenols on 3T3-F442A preadipocyte differentiation. FA-SEBJ.25: 583.7Prior
RL et al. Purified blueberry anthocyanins and blueberry juice alter development of obesity in mice fed an obesogenic high-fat diet. J Agric Food Chem; 58: 3976-.
