Benefits from Cranberries

CAUTION: IF YOU ARE TAKING COUMADIN OR WARFERIN. "DO NOT TAKE/INGEST CRANBERRIES IN ANY FORM...LIQUID OR SOLID..UNLESS IT'S USE HAS BEEN APPROVED BY YOUR CARDIOLOGIST

To your health: the benefits of cranberries

Superheros Of The Bacteria Fighting World

Cranberries are among the top foods with proven health benefits. They are full of antioxidants, which protect cells from damage by unstable molecules called free radicals.

The National Institutes of Health is funding research on the cranberry’s effects on heart disease, yeast infections and other conditions, and other researchers are investigating its potential against cancer, stroke and viral infections.So far, research has found:

•Drinking cranberry juice can block urinary infections by binding to bacteria so they can’t adhere to cell walls. While women often drink unsweetened cranberry juice to treat an infection, there’s no hard evidence that works.

•A compound in cranberries, proanthocyanidine, prevents plaque formation on teeth; mouthwashes containing it are being developed to prevent periodontal disease.

•In some people, regular cranberry juice consumption for months can kill the H. pylori bacteria, which can cause stomach cancer and ulcers.

Preliminary research also shows:
•Drinking cranberry juice daily may increase levels of HDL, good cholesterol, and reduce levels of LDL, bad cholesterol.

•Cranberries may prevent tumors from growing rapidly or starting in the first place.

•Extracts of chemicals in cranberries prevent breast cancer cells from multiplying in a test tube; whether that would work in women is unknown.

Source:AP interviews, medical journals.

Cranberries aren’t just found in juice anymore

Tart fruit more popular because of marketing, proven health benefits
Associated Press...Posted Monday, November 20, 2006

SHAMONG TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Long a jellied side dish at Thanksgiving, cranberries are increasingly bringing their tart taste and health benefits to products beyond Cosmopolitan cocktails and juice drinks.

The red berries are turning up in everything from confections and wines to soaps and salsas, with many cranberry growers hawking an array of products at their own stores or over the Internet.

The Joseph J. White Inc. cranberry farm in New Jersey, the No. 3 cranberry producing state, has even started using them for agritourism. It gives bus rides around flooded bogs during the October harvest to teach visitors all about cranberry lore. Growers in Wisconsin, the No. 1. producer, and in No. 2 Massachusetts have done so for years.

Cranberry sales — fresh, frozen, in juices and dried for snacks or ingredients in cereals and other products — are approaching $1.5 billion a year in this country, said Ken Romanzi, chief operating officer of Ocean Spray, a huge cooperative owned by about 650 North American cranberry growers and some grapefruit farmers.

The boom of the berry is due to proven health benefits that have fueled marketing campaigns and consumer popularity, fast expanding markets overseas, particularly Japan and western Europe.

In the past several years, farmers and processors, primarily small operations, have introduced cranberry mustard and chutney, gourmet cranberry sauces, dried cranberries in trail mixes, cranberry-flavored ice cream, hand lotions and cosmetics made from cranberry seed oil, and even cranberry beer, said Tom Lochner, executive director of the cranberry growers association in Wisconsin.

Cranberries, native only to North America, also are grown in Oregon, Washington State and British Columbia and Quebec in Canada.

“People realized cranberries can be used in a lot of different ways,” said Lochner, noting there are more than 700 cranberry products on the market.

Fine restaurants also have been increasingly using cranberries in salads, desserts, sauces and stuffing, and the cranberry industry has been circulating recipes featuring the berries.

Ocean Spray, which will process nearly two-thirds of the estimated 660 million pound U.S. harvest this year. It's ads feature farmers standing in cranberry bogs and promote the berries as “cleansing and purifying.”

Sales of cranberry wine have been rising steadily at Valenzano Winery in Shamong, N.J. It now produces about 3,000 gallons a year, said Tony Valenzano Jr., who runs the decade old winery about halfway between Philadelphia and Atlantic City.

“It’s a good seller year round, but 80 percent of the sales are for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he said.

Cranberries also are being featured in agritourism as visitors head to farms to see how farmers raise crops and animals or enjoy holiday festivals.

“There’s a lot of interest in seeing the cranberry harvest because it’s very unique and quite colorful,” said Darlington, of the White farm. “The response has been very enthusiastic.”

The tour also includes a stop at Whitesbog, a still inhabited village built in the 19th century that once served as a sort of company town for farm employees before automation reduced the number of workers needed. Ocean Spray, meanwhile, has been bringing bogs directly to the public, building them in downtown New York, Chicago and Los Angeles(*)to promote cranberries.

Cranberries: Superheroes of the bacteia fighting world

U.S.News & World Report

Cranberry's reputation as an infection fighting superfood appears to be supported by science.

Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts believe that tannin compounds in the berries prevent kidney and other urinary tract infections by literally changing the shape of the disease causing bacterium and interfering with its ability to amass and initiate an infection.

The WPI team exposed bacteria to either Ocean Spray's Cranberry Juice Cocktail, which has a 27 percent cranberry concentration, or to the more concentrated tannin extracts alone. In both cases, the rod shaped bacteria mutated into spheres, which thwarted their ability to bind to human urinary tractce.

The tannins added another level of protection: By intensifying the bacteria's negative charge, they caused the bacteria and human cells to repel each other like magnets. The researchers also saw a change in the way bacteria exposed to the tannins expresses a key messaging molecule and suspect that they may lose their ability to communicate and reach critical mass.

The results suggest that the higher the concentration of cranberry you're getting, the better the protection is apt to be.

"When it's higher, you see the changes in the bacteria faster," said researcher Terri Camesano, who has studied bacterial adhesion and cranberries for 10 years. Because we all carry the offending bacteria naturally in out gut,said Camesano, consistantly having the cranberries active compounds in the system might prevent infection and reduce the need for antibiotic treatment.

So drink to your health.

Highlights and *added by page author.