FoodFacts.com learned about some interesting research that’s being planned right now that can ultimately give us a better understanding of how different fruits can actually improve heart and vascular health in our population.

The University of Warwick is teaming up with Unilever to attempt to discover if nutrients in fruits in the right combinations can have a positive impact on our health. The study is based on the concept that certain properties of fruits help to trigger cell defense mechanisms in the walls of blood vessels. This protects the vessels from damage caused by aging and prevents the onset of Type-2 diabetes. If the conclusions derived from this study show these links, it would be the first time research will have shown an association between fruit consumption and heart health improvement.

The study is planned as a three year endeavor. It will implement a new screening technology developed by the University of Warwick that can identify which fruits contain the nutrients that impact heart and vascular health. The findings will then be used to develop prototype products to be tested on human blood vessels. Clinical trials of the products would then be implemented on middle-aged, overweight participants using metabolism research equipment. The volunteers will have their blood vessel function and glucose levels monitored to illustrate which foods activate the blood vessel protection being hypothesized.

The hopes for this study are quite broad. In the first place, the findings could help influence consumers to make small dietary changes that may help them make huge health improvements. If you understood that eating certain fruits would help to bolster your body’s natural protective mechanisms, you could easily include more of those fruits in your daily diet. But beyond that, the hope is that a new line of health products could be designed that can leverage the ingredients present in the fruits that jump start the body’s protection system. If the healthy properties of fruits like grapes, strawberries and olives can be harnessed to assist the body’s own defenses against heart disease and diabetes, we may be able to make a real change in the problems associated with aging.

While FoodFacts.com is always reporting on new research findings, we were excited to learn of this new, planned research. This window into the future speaks to discoveries yet to be made regarding our nutrition health. It’s science waiting to happen and raises questions about how, in the future, it might be possible for us to reduce the health problems normally associated with aging because of the nutrients contained in our fruits.

Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-fruit-vascular-health.html#jCp