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Tart cherries are also known as sour cherries or pie cherries. They survive for 20 to 25 years and have flowers in the early spring season. Sweet cherries are often consumed as fresh, while tart cherries are consumed when frozen, juiced, or dried. The tart cherry benefits1 are many, and they are known for their lovely looks and extinguishing taste. Sweet cherries are perfect to be eaten as a snack, and tart cherries are perfect for baking.
Tart cherry has many health benefits and is extracted from Montmorency cherry2; juice made from these cherries has many impressive health benefits and should be consumed at least two days a week. Most athletes prefer Montmorency cherry juice as it helps with exercise and getting a night of good sleep.
The tart cherry is mostly dried, frozen, or make cherry juice concentrate which can be used to make smoothies, tart cherry powder, cocktails, cakes, and cherry brandy. The tart cherry juice concentrate must be a part of your daily diet as it helps you gain more nutrients and flush out all the toxins from your bod3y. Older adults should twice a day, and kids should have it once a day.
This summer fruit is good-looking and delicious and has many health benefits. The tart cherry juice is more delicious and healthy. The tart cherry is rich in nutrients, so many benefits will be discussed in this article. Now let’s see the 5 tart cherry benefits.
1. Benefits Of Tart Cherry Juice
Tart cherry has many health benefits, as it has anti-inflammatory properties and is an antioxidant that helps relieve many health issues. It is also known among the sportsmen as a sports nutrition. The various nutrients present in the tart cherry are calcium, magnesium, Vitamin B, and omega 3. The 5 tart cherry benefits are:
1.1. Muscle Soreness & Excercise Recovery
Muscle soreness is caused due to intense physical exercise, which causes muscle damage, and tart cherry juice helps relieve some pain. The tart cherry juice may work as a pre and post-recovery workout juice. As a drink, it helps reduce muscle soreness, and its anti-oxidative capacity helps enhance endurance exercise performance.
The long-distance runners and placebo group are mostly advised to drink tart cherry juice or to eat dried tart cherries as they face the problem of upper respiratory tract4 symptoms. Tart cherry juice may help with muscle pain and improve the immune system and metabolism. It also helps with the joint pain caused during your workout or daily routine, as it contains various nutrients.
The athletes are advised to increase their muscle strength which leads to long exercise hours and muscle damage, so muscle recovery is made as there are antioxidants found in the tart cherry5, which acts as a sports medicine. So, to increase endurance exercise performance, we need to include tart cherries in our diet and eat or drink tart cherries after the workout, as it also helps with the quick recovery of muscle pain.
1.2. Treats Insomnia & Improve Brain Health
Tart cherry benefits are many, but the most known is that it helps to get sleep efficiently6. Consuming tart cherry juice increases melatonin levels and tryptophan in the body, and it helps to get sleep efficiency. The Montmorency cherries are known for giving enhanced sleep quality and duration over a long period.
The tart cherries’ antioxidants and rich nutrients like vitamins and minerals help improve brain function and cognitive abilities. It helps reduce hypertension7 and short-term memory loss abilities. The tart cherry juice also helps to slow the degeneration of the brain cells resulting in keeping mild to moderate dementia and other brain diseases away.
The tart cherry juice benefits enable us to prevent other health diseases by helping to get a proper sleep time as it sets the internal body clock; by eating tart cherries, we are also protected from various memory loss diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. The tart cherry juice intake should be consumed in small quantities daily to maintain good brain health and have a good night’s sleep.
1.3. Cure From Gout & Arthritis
Arthritis-related pain is joint pain, which can be determined by its severe pain, tenderness, and redness or swelling. The pain and inflammation in the joint are the main symptoms of arthritis, and tart cherry juice helps to soothe this pain with the help of its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
The anti-inflammatory compounds present in tart cherries have many potential health benefits. Drinking tart cherry juice helps to soothe the pain caused by inflammation and increases the immune system. The uric acid in tart cherry juice helps to control the risk of gout attacks in the future, and it is believed that tart cherries are the most powerful anti-inflammatory food among any food.
The tart cherry juice ensures you are not exposed to the danger of osteoarthritis8 as the tissues near the bones wear down due to constant wear and tear during hard workout sessions. So, adding tart cherry juice to the diet will help ensure that you do not have a gout attack soon, as it takes 4 months to show its effects.
1.4. Prevents Heart Disease & Weight Loss
The tart cherry benefits are many, and its concentrate has an antioxidant component called quercetin which helps to control high blood pressure 9and reduces the impact of oxidation damage. The LDL cholesterol levels and blood pressure are held by consuming tart cherry juice or dried tart cherries as they reduce the risk of heart attacks and systolic blood pressure10, which harm an individual’s heart health.
The anti-inflammation and antioxidant properties present in tart cherry juice help not only to protect from cardiovascular disease but also have other health benefits that help with blood thinners medication and systolic blood pressure, which have more impact on our body also; the tart cherries help to reduce belly fats in older adults.
To lose weight, we mostly look for ways to reduce belly fat first as they are very hard to fail, but if you drink tart cherry juice, you can easily lose the belly fat resulting in weight loss. If you plan to lose weight, you need to add tart cherry juice to your daily diet, as tart cherries help increase the body’s metabolism, which helps reduce weight quickly. You should always check if there is any added sugar in tart cherry juice.
1.5. Protects From Cancer & Improves Gut Health
The tart cherry benefits include preventing one of the major diseases, cancer, as it has very active anthocyanins that stay in the blood for over 12 hours after tart cherry juice intake. The antioxidant helps decrease free radicals’ effect on various organs and less the oxidation stress.
Other chemicals fighting cancer that make tart cherries so beneficial are perillyl alcohol, ellagic acid, and limonene, which help slow down the cell transformation that leads to cancer or inflammation. Gut health is also improved by drinking tart cherry juice as it has good bacteria present in it.
Montmorency cherries are rich in polyphenols which help to improve our gut health, so if it is included in the diet, the digestive system would be affected positively. If gut health is good, you can have good digestive health by reviving the bacteria in the intestinal tract that help prevent diseases like gallstones, IBS, and kidney stones.
2. Conclusion
The 5 tart cherry benefits are that it gives relief from muscle soreness and exercise recovery is fast, treats insomnia and improves brain health, cures gout and arthritis, prevents heart disease and helps with weight loss, and prevents cancer and Improves gut health. There are also other tart cherry benefits to our health other than these.
The tart cherry juice benefits are only effective if you consume the tart cherry regularly and not more or less, as they also have side effects. If you buy a tart cherry extract, check the added sugars as many older adults do not see to it and say they do not see any weight changes even after taking the tart cherry, but if handled correctly, the results can be seen in two weeks.
The most benefits of tart cherry can be obtained by drinking tart cherry juice as you consume more cherries by drinking the cherry juice than actually eating the cherry. There is also a sweet variety of cherries, but you should avoid them and eat tart cherries, as it is a better choice with more health benefits than sweet cherries.
FAQ
How do tart cherries differ from sweet cherries?
- Tart cherries are more acidic and have a sour taste compared to sweet cherries. They are also usually smaller and brighter red in color.
Can I eat tart cherries raw?
- Yes, tart cherries can be eaten raw, although their sour taste may be off-putting to some people. They are often used in cooking and baking where their tart flavor can be balanced with sweeter ingredients.
Is tart cherry juice good for arthritis and gout?
- Some studies suggest that the anti-inflammatory properties of tart cherries may help alleviate symptoms of arthritis and gout, although more research is needed to confirm these effects.
Read more
- Howatson, Glyn, et al. “Effect of tart cherry juice (Prunus cerasus) on melatonin levels and enhanced sleep quality.” European journal of nutrition 51 (2012): 909-916. ↩︎
- Sumners, David P., et al. “Montmorency cherry juice reduces muscle damage caused by intensive strength exercise.” (2011). ↩︎
- Lourie, Bruce, and Rick Smith. Toxin toxout: getting harmful chemicals out of our bodies and our world. Univ. of Queensland Press, 2013. ↩︎
- Jain, Neemisha, R. Lodha, and S. K. Kabra. “Upper respiratory tract infections.” The Indian Journal of Pediatrics 68 (2001): 1135-1138. ↩︎
- Wang, Haibo, et al. “Antioxidant polyphenols from tart cherries (Prunus cerasus).” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 47.3 (1999): 840-844. ↩︎
- Didikoglu, Altug, et al. “Longitudinal sleep efficiency in the elderly and its association with health.” Journal of sleep research 29.3 (2020): e12898. ↩︎
- Gupta, Rajeev, and Soneil Guptha. “Strategies for initial management of hypertension.” The Indian journal of medical research 132.5 (2010): 531. ↩︎
- Millerand, Marion, Francis Berenbaum, and Claire Jacques. “Danger signals and inflammaging in osteoarthritis.” Clin Exp Rheumatol 37.Suppl 120 (2019): 48-56. ↩︎
- Kristt, Donald A., and Bernard T. Engel. “Learned control of blood pressure in patients with high blood pressure.” Circulation 51.2 (1975): 370-378. ↩︎
- Kannel, William B. “Elevated systolic blood pressure as a cardiovascular risk factor.” The American journal of cardiology 85.2 (2000): 251-255. ↩︎
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