In early 2008, during a Sunday morning presentation in San Diego, CA a team from the U-M Cardioprotection Research Laboratory introduced to the world the results of a study that showed tart cherry powder helped test subjects gain less weight then non-cherry fed test subjects.

According the research presented during the meeting, test rats were fed whole tart cherry powder mixed into a high-fat diet. The group of rats that where fed tart cherry powder build up as much total body fat or didn't gain as much weight as the non-tart cherry powder diet. In addition, the blood of the tart cherry fed group also showed significantly lower levels of inflammation. This kind of molecule inflammation is one indicator that is linked to diabetes and heart disease. The test group had significantly lowers of triglycerides and cholesterol levels on the blood.

These two types of molecular inflammation is often seen in people and animals with cardiovascular disease. Although inflammation is normal when the body fights off injury or infection, according to research, a chronic state of inflammation in the body or various areas has been linked to a possible increase in the risk potential for a number of diseases.

The research team conducted this ground breaking research over a 90 day period. The research team used a total of 48 fat-prone rats and 24 of the 48 rats were obese. The diet of both groups used in the study were fed 45 percent calories from fat and 35 percent came from carbohydrates. The age of each participant in the group was six weeks old and for the next 90 days the cherry group was fed a cherry-enriched diet in which tart cherries made up 1 percent of the diet by weight, while the second group was fed a diet of equal numbers of calories and carbohydrates.

After 90 day, the participants were test for triglyceride levels, cholesterol, glucose and each also received DEXA scans to measure body fat and the amount of fat collected. In addition the test groups were also tested for two inflammation markers: Interleukin-6 and TNF-alpha

The exciting results of the study occurred at the end when the rats that received tart cherry powder had lower fat mass, body weight, triglyceride, total cholesterol, TNF-alpha, triglyceride, and IL-6 than the rats that did not receive cherry powder. In all, TNF-alpha was reduced by 50 percent in the lean rats and IL-6 was lowered by 38 percent. The cherry fed participant also had lower levels of belly fat. Belly fat has been associated with cardiovascular risk and inflammation in humans.

Although the study was conducted on rats, University of Michigan is preparing the launch a clinical trial on humans. In the preliminary information, and according to the researchers if humans wanted to consume the same amount of the tart cherries that the rats did they would need to consume 1.5 cups every day. At first this may seem like an unreasonable goals, however thanks to several tart cherry based products, individuals have two popular ways to get your daily dose of tart cherries.

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