Boysenberries Could be Beneficial to Asthma Sufferers Says New Zealand Study

New research from Auckland Plant & Food Research Science Group, suggests that regular Boysenberry consumption may improve lung function by reducing symptoms associated with inflammation of the airways, which can cause conditions such as asthma.

Previous studies have found that lung function can be improved by consuming fruits which contains high levels of antioxidant compounds known as polyphenols, although the underlying mechanisms behind this are largely unknown.

 

Plant & Food Research Science Group leader, Dr. Roger Hurst, talks with FoodIngredientsFirst about the study which was funded by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

 

“This was a pre-clinical study looking at chronic allergic lung inflammation in rodents. The inflammation was induced for five weeks before the rodents were fed boysenberry juice twice weekly for five weeks. Inflammation and tissue damage were measured by lung histology and immune cells counts,” Dr. Hurst tells us.

 

“There are two main findings from this study. The first is the management of the allergic inflammation by boysenberry, reducing the infiltration of the immune cells into the lung. This finding is new, but not such a surprise to us as we have published other research demonstrating that another berry fruit, blackcurrants, have this ability when evaluating lung cells in the laboratory.”

 

“The new, and even more exciting findings of this study, however was that boysenberry consumption had additional benefits - it reduced the fibrotic scarring (as measured by histology and amount of collagen in the lungs) in the lungs compared to the lungs of rodents with allergic lung inflammation.”

 

“Further we showed that this reduction in scarring was mediated by specialized immune cells, called macrophages, producing matrix metalloproteinase-9 which both helps break down excess collagen and assists in creating an environment for proper tissue repair.”

 

Dr. Hurst adds how this research suggests that consuming boysenberries has the potential to help the body manage inflammation and resolve fibrotic scarring, promoting an environment for improved tissue repair.

 

“While this is only pre-clinical data, it is exciting, and has implications for helping people maintain normal and functioning lung tissue,” he added.

 

“One of the next scientific steps of interest to us is discovering the bioactives in boysenberry and determining whether there are other fruit varieties that may be even better. We have published on other berries (e.g. blackcurrants) having inflammation managing activity in lung cells and so it would also be interesting to determine if there were synergistic activities between different fruits.”

 

Dr. Hurst’s research is in the very early stages and would need to be translated into human studies. It is part of ongoing work with industry partner Anagenix, which could, in the future, commercialize the discoveries.