(Newswire.net — February 8, 2015) — Moderate drinking of red grape based products, such as grape juice or red wine, or simply eating red grapes, helps boost your metabolism and reduce excess weight, according to a new study.
The study, published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, found that ellagic acid in Muscadine grapes was particularly successful at slowing the growth of existing fat cells, formation of new ones and boosted metabolism of fatty acids in liver cells.
The red grape, however, “should not be looked at as a weight loss miracle,” said coauthor of the study, Neil Shay, a biochemist and molecular biologist at Oregon State University’s (OSU) College of Agricultural Sciences.
“We didn’t find, and we didn’t expect to [find], that these compounds would improve body weight,” he said. Nonetheless, the data showed by burning more fat, especially in the liver, ellagic acid could improve liver function in overweight people.
The research, builds on a 2013 trial, which supplemented the diets of overweight mice with extracts from Pinot Noir grapes.
The quantity of the supplemental grapes werematched to the mice’s nutritional needs and were equivalent to about one and a half cups a day for a human.
Control group mice were given normal mouse food, other was fed with the kind of unhealthy diet that would pile extra fat onto the human body.
However, the chubby mice that fed the grape extracts stored less fat in their livers and had lower blood sugar than those who had just had the fatty diet. Fat mice without the grape additive developed “the same metabolic consequences we see in many overweight, sedentary people,” said Shay.
When the scientists analyzed the tissues of the mice that had eaten the grape supplements, they found higher level of proteins that metabolize fat and sugar in cells.
“We are trying to validate the specific contributions of certain foods for health benefits. If you’re out food shopping ,and if you know a certain kind of fruit is good for a health conditions you have, wouldn’t you want to buy that fruit?” said Shay.