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16.09.2025

Blueberries prevent fatty liver disease | Animal study

If you consistently consume more calories than you need, resulting in weight gain and a fatty liver, you may be able to limit the damage by eating half a cup of blueberries daily. This is according to a Chinese animal study published in the summer of 2025 in Foods.

Study
Researchers at Zhejiang Normal University conducted an eight-week experiment with C57BL/6 mice. The researchers fed mice in a control group standard diet and fattened another group by feeding them diets that consisted of 60 percent fat. A third group of mice was also fed a high-fat diet but also received a dose of blueberry extract every other day.

The extract contained primarily anthocyanins. It was produced by Shanghai Yuanye Bio-Technology. That company did not contribute to the research - and the animal study was therefore, as far as we can determine, not sponsored.

The Chinese fed their mice 100 milligrams of extract per kilogram of body weight every other day. The human equivalent of that dose is approximately 280-400 milligrams of extract per day.

According to analyses by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), 100 grams of fresh blueberries contains 387 milligrams of anthocyanins. [J Agric Food Chem. 2006 May 31;54(11):4069-75.] 100 grams of blueberries fills about half a cup.

Results
The fattening caused the mice to gain weight, and their triglyceride and LDL cholesterol levels increased. Supplementation with blueberry extract did not prevent this. However, supplementation did reduce body weight gain by 7 percent and the increase in triglycerides and LDL cholesterol by 28 and 22 percent, respectively.

You can see this in the figure below. Click on it for a larger version.

When the researchers examined the mice's livers under a microscope, they saw that the fattening had caused steatosis. If the mice had also been fed blueberries, the degree of steatosis was significantly less. This is illustrated in the figure above.

Supplementation increased the activity of endogenous antioxidants in the liver compared to mice fed only a high-fat diet. At the same time, supplementation reduced the activity of harmful oxidants and the activity of genes that cause liver cells to store fat.

Source:
Foods. 2025 Sep 6;14(17):3121.

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Cardiovascular Health
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