It turns out that the famous phrase “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” is not far from the truth, but the fruit with positive properties this time seems to be the strawberry, not the apple!
Researchers from the Marche Polytechnica University in Italy, in collaboration with international research centres, have discovered that the red berry can reduce and even prevent gastric problems connected with the formation of free radicals in the stomach.
Free radicals are dangerous because they damage cells, causing a variety of different harms such as inflammations and ulcers. They behave like a spark in a barn, igniting other fires and causing the flames to spread like a chain reaction. In a similar fashion, free radicals in the body can damage a cell in a way that will damage another cell, and so on.
One of the numerous problems caused by the consumption of alcohol is the production of these free radicals.
Alcohol was used during the research because this is a standard procedure in laboratories to induce gastric lesions. “The test used is a well-known and widely diffused test to evaluate the ability of potential gastroprotectors [substances that can protect the stomach] in inhibiting damages which occur at gastric level,” said Professor Maurizio Battino, coordinator of the research group at the Marche Polytechnic University. “Alcohol is employed as an easy model to produce gastric lesions and gastric bleeding.”
In the research, rats were given alcohol after 10 days on a diet of only strawberries. Their stomachs were then compared to those of rats who hadn’t been fed strawberries. Stomachs of the strawberry-fed rats were found to have less damage and fewer ulcers than those of rats that hadn’t eaten strawberries.
“Some bioactive [biologically active] compounds [called anthocyanins] from strawberries are able to counteract the inflammation processes underlying gastric bleeding,” claimed Professor Battino.
The research may have wider applications because the same type of damage induced by alcohol can also be caused by viruses, some medicines, as well as other substances.
Further development of this study could produce strawberry-based medicines.
“One of our aims is to obtain new molecules able to prevent or treat different gastric pathologies,” Professor Battino said. “The next step would be to identify which compound, among the several in the above class, has the highest efficacy.”
The research could go wider considering that “several berries are extremely rich in this kind of beneficial molecule”. This study is part of a wider project, EUBerry, a European Union-funded study that aims to understand the important protective and possibly therapeutic benefits of berries.
(Image Pink Sherbet Photography)