It is known that blueberries are used to prevent urinary infections. However, their therapeutic effects don’t end here.

“Blueberries extracts can help to prevent other types of cancer too, but focusing our efforts on colon cancer seems reasonable”, states doctor Catherine Neto. “The components and metabolites of blueberries should be found in a bioavailable state for the colon as the process of digestion advances.”.

Doctor Neto’s team generated 3 blueberries powder extract: a powder of the same fruit, an extract that only contained blueberries polyphenol and one that contained only the non-polyphenol components of the fruit. There are data that indicate that polyphenols have anti-inflammatory properties and the doctor wanted to analyze their contribution to the general beneficial effects.

After two weeks, the mice that had received blueberries extract presented a 50% reduction in the number of tumors compared to the mice that had not received the extract. The rest of the tumors were also reduced in size. In fact, the blueberries extract seemed to reduce the level of inflammatory markers in mice.