Cholesterol

All of these measures are linked to metabolic syndrome, which is a cluster of risk factors linked to type 2 diabetes and high rates of heart disease.

Researchers from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor fed rats tart cherries in a powder form and compared their health to rats that did not receive the cherries but had an otherwise similar diet.

All of the rats in this study were prone to having high E.

Mitchell Seymour, M.S., a research associate and supervisor of the Cardioprotection Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan, told Ivanhoe, "We found that tart cherries, when fed to our research animals, reduced high blood lipids, high fasting glucose and high insulin.

We're excited about the implications of that for metabolic syndrome in humans." The positive effects from the cherries come from a unique combination of high concentrations of antioxidant compounds called anthocyanins and melatonin.

This rat study, funded by a grant from the Cherry Marketing Institute, lasted 90 days.

Seymour says in order to more accurately test the effect it could have on humans, the study would have to be longer to track how a diet rich in cherries affects Seymour said, "It may not be something you can take only a few times and see an e...

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