Early results from studies indicate that feeding cranberry juice powder seems to relax and open blood vessels in pigs that are genetically susceptible to developing atherosclerosis, or clogged arteries. Kris Kruse-Elliott, a veterinary anesthesiologist at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, presented her results at the American Physiological Society's annual meeting in San Diego in April.
She and co-researcher Jess Reed, a nutritionist in the Department of Animal Sciences, set out to evaluate various whole foods that contain antioxidants, flavonoids and polyphenols, all compounds that may protect against heart disease. Cranberries contain all three, so they fed cranberry juice powder to pigs that were genetically predisposed to develop high cholesterol and atherosclerosis, just as some humans are.
"When these pigs were fed cranberry juice powder made from whole cranberries for six months, their vessels acted more like normal pigs," Kruse-Elliott says, meaning that the pigs' blood vessels relaxed and opened more.
Abnormal blood vessel function is an important component of heart disease. Finding ways to improve vessel function in patients with high cholesterol and atherosclerosis is critical to helping protect these patients from consequences such as heart attack or stroke.
"The next step is to determine what specific components of cranberries are most important to the improvements in vascular function that we observed, exactly how they modify blood vessel relaxation, and how they can be most easily consumed as part of the diet," Kruse-Elliott says. That last factor may be key. While pigs may not mind the intense tartness of concentrated cranberries, someone will need to make cranberry juice powder palatable to people before the next "heart-protection" diet is born.
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"People of all ages need to be informed that diet and exercise play a role in osteoporosis prevention and that lifestyle changes can decrease the risk of developing the disease later in life. Seniors and women are more vulnerable to developing brittle bones and its important to target prevention and education efforts at both of these groups," said Congresswoman Shelly Berkley (D-NV), who was diagnosed with osteoporosis in 1998. "That is why it is critical that information on osteoporosis is readily available and that we find more ways to spread the word."
However, speakers today called the asymptomatic condition a "silent disease" and identified poor communication between physicians and patients as one of the key barriers to prevention and treatment.
"Patients and doctors have to learn to speak the same language," said Dr. Susan Blalock of the University of North Carolina School of Pharmacy. "A doctor defines issues in objective terms while patients define issues in terms of personal relevance. Physicians talk about broken bones, but women are worried about loss of independence as a result of a broken bone. That's very different."
The event was hosted by the Alliance for Aging Research, a not-for-profit independent organization dedicated to supporting and accelerating the pace of medical discoveries to vastly improve the universal human experience of aging.
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