Eating blueberries can make you look like this

(Erin Heatherton)


Well, maybe not everybody can look like this. But it turns out that blueberries can help reduce fat in the body. Which might help.

Blueberries may help reduce belly fat, diabetes risk

The researchers studied the effect of blueberries (freeze dried blueberries crushed into a powder) that were mixed into the rat diet, as part of either a low- or high-fat diet. They performed many comparisons between the rats consuming the test diets and the control rats receiving no blueberry powder. All the rats were from a research breed that is prone to being severely overweight.

In all, after 90 days, the rats that received the blueberry-enriched powder, measured as 2 percent of their diet, had less abdominal fat, lower triglycerides, lower cholesterol, and improved fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity, which are measures of how well the body processes glucose for energy.

While regular blueberry intake reduced these risks for cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome, the health benefits were even better when combined with a low-fat diet.

Now, one tip on how to use blueberries effectively.

Good way to use blueberries in a diet to reduce body fat and diabetes risk:
















Not such a good way: