Benefits of Cherries

When you eat cherries, you enjoy much more than just their amazing taste. They’re packed with antioxidants and offer many health benefits, including help with insomnia, joint pain and belly fat. Cherries could be just what the doctor ordered.

One of the benefits of cherries is they’re a nutritionally dense food rich in anthocyanins, quercetin, hydroxycinnamates, potassium, carotenoids and melanin.

One cup of sweet cherries has about:

- 87 calories
- zero grams fat
- 22 grams carbohydrates
- 3 grams dietary fiber
- 18 grams sugar
-1 gram protein
-10 milligrams vitamin C (16 percent DV)
- 2.9 micrograms vitamin K (4 percent)
-88 international units vitamin A (2 percent DV)
- 306 milligrams potassium (9 percent DV)
- 0.1 milligram manganese (5 percent DV)
- 0.1 milligram copper (4 percent DV)
- 15.2 milligrams magnesium (4 percent DV)
- 0.1 milligram vitamin B6 (3 percent DV)
-0.5 milligrams iron (3 percent DV)
-17.9 milligrams calcium (2 percent DV)

Here are good reasons to start eating this powerfood today!

1. Protects Against Diabetes:
   Sweet cherries have a low glycemic index of 22 — lower than apricots (57), grapes (46), peaches (42), blueberries (40) or plums (39). This makes them a better snack than many other fruits, especially for diabetics.

2. Promotes Better Sleep:
   Tossing and turning at night? Cherry juice to the rescue! Drink cherry juice 30 minutes after waking and 30 minutes before your evening meal. In a study, participants boosted their melatonin intake by following this routine. Cherries are a good source of melatonin, which helps us regulate our sleep cycles. Cherries have also been found to help with jet lag.

Note: there is a higher level of melatonin in tart cherries compared to sweet cherries.

1. Boost Heart Health:
   Research done at the University of Michigan suggests that tart cherries provide cardiovascular benefits and can reduce the risk of stroke. The study showed that tart cherries activate PPAR isoforms (peroxisome proliferator activating receptors) in many of the body’s tissues. PPARs regulate genes that are involved in fat and glucose metabolism, and when modified they can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. There are prescribed medications that do the same thing, but they come with serious side effects, such as heart attack and stroke.

2. Slows the Aging of Skin:
   Cherries have the highest antioxidant level of any fruit. Antioxidants help the body fight the free radicals that make us look old. Drinking one glass of tart cherry juice daily slows down the aging process, according to Scientists from the Michigan State University. Cherry juice is also recommended as an alternative treatment for other skin conditions.

3. Lowers Risk of Gout Attacks:
   Eating cherries lowers risk of gout attacks by 35 percent in a study with 633 gout patients, done by by Yuqing Zhang, professor of medicine and public health at Boston University. Gout patients who consumed cherries over a two-day period had a 35 percent lower risk of gout attacks, compared to those who did not eat the cherries. “Our findings indicate that consuming cherries or cherry extract lowers the risk of gout attack, the gout flare risk continued to decrease with increasing cherry consumption, up to three servings over two days,” said Zhang.

4. Reduces Muscle Pain:
   A cup and a half of tart cherries or one cup of tart cherry juice can reduce muscle inflammation and soreness studies suggest. A group of marathon runners drank tart cherry juice twice daily for seven days before their race. The group who drank the cherry juice group experienced less muscle pain after the race than those who drank another fruit drink.

5. Helps Regulate Blood Pressure:
   Cherries are very high in potassium, which helps regulate heart rate and blood pressure and reduces the risk of hypertension. The phytosterols in cherries help reduce bad cholesterol levels.

6. Helps with osteoarthritis relief:
   The pain and discomfort of swollen joints were reduced when tart cherry juice was consumed twice a day for three weeks in a study of twenty women ages 40 to 70 with inflammatory osteoarthritis.

7. Helps to Prevent Colon Cancer:
   Substances in tart cherries can reduce the formation of the carcinogenic chemicals that develop from the charring of hamburger. Researchers added tart cherries to ground beef patties. “The fat contents of the cherry patties were, as expected, lower than that of the control patties, whereas the moisture contents were greater. Cherry tissue will not only slow down the oxidation deterioration of meat lipids, but will also substantially reduce the formation of heterocyclic aromatic amines,” reported J. Ian Gray, PhD, Professor of Food Science at Michigan State.

Possible Side Effects of Cherries:

Consuming sweet and tart cherries is completely safe for adults and children. Cherries may cause an allergic reaction in people who are sensitive. There is not enough research to indicate if large doses for medicinal purposes are completely safe. If you consume large doses, or cherry supplements, inform your doctor and keep track of your bodily responses before continuing the treatment.

Consuming cherries is safe for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, but the safety of taking large doses for medicine is unknown because not enough research has been done. There are no known cherry interactions at this time.