6 Healthy Reasons to Eat Cranberries

In the past, cranberries only made an appearance at holiday dinners. But researchers have discovered that the small, deeply colored fruits are packed with antioxidants and other valuable nutrients and deserve a regular place in our diets. In response, food producers have been adding cranberries to juices, cereals, granola bars, and other products. Check out these six ways cranberries give your health a boost.

1. Banish fat

Native Americans used cranberries as both food and medicine, and researchers are finding that cranberries contain organic acids that help dissolve fat deposits — an important component of weight loss because fat deposits can be difficult to evict. Some studies indicate that enzymes in cranberries boost metabolism, which can increase weight loss. They even help banish cellulite, according to brainyweightloss.com.

Neurologist and psychiatrist Alan Hirsch, director of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, found that the scent of cranberries can stimulate the part of the hypothalamus that controls satiety.

2. Manage cholesterol

Researchers at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania found that drinking three glasses of cranberry juice daily for a month significantly raised HDL ("good") cholesterol by 10 percent and lowered the risk of heart disease by 40 percent. Cranberries may even help those with genes for high cholesterol. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine found that cranberry powder lowered the cholesterol levels of pigs born with a genetic predisposition for high cholesterol. Within six months, their cholesterol levels were less than other pigs born with the genetic defect but not given cranberry powder, as well as the levels of pigs born with normal cholesterol levels that weren't given cranberry.

3. Fight cancer

University of California researchers found that cranberries contain the phytochemicals phenolic acids, glycosides, and anthocyanins, that block cancerous tumors both high and low — in the head and neck as well as in the colon and prostate. The phytochemicals force cancer cells to commit apoptosis — in short, to kill themselves. Drink a small glass of juice (contains at least 27 percent cranberry juice) daily and snack on dried cranberries.

4. Stop UTI

Cranberries have been used for hundreds of years by Native Americans to fight infections. Modern scientists have found that cranberries are unique in their ability to keep bacteria from sticking to bladder walls. A daily glass of cranberry juice or cranberry capsules reduces bladder infections, especially in women who have them often. A new study from the Worchester Polytechnic Institute found that the beneficial substances in cranberry could begin protecting against urinary tract infections within eight hours.

5. Prevent tooth decay

A study at the University of California Los Angeles found that the flavonoids quercetin and myricetin found in cranberries keep the bacteria responsible for tooth decay from sticking to teeth. Scientists at New York's University of Rochester school of Medicine and Dentistry also found that cranberries could prevent bacteria from sticking to teeth and decrease the formation of plaque due to flavonoids.

6. Kill bacteria

A study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that cranberries stalled the growth of bacteria that cause food-borne illnesses while enhancing "good" bacteria. In fact, while cranberries killed bad bacteria, including Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli, they boosted the growth of helpful Lactobacillus fermentum by up to 25 times. "Components in cranberries are specifically inhibiting the growth of certain food-borne pathogens and may enable, or even promote, the survival of ‘good’ bacteria,” researcher Leslie Plhak told medicalnewsservice.com.