Health Benefits

The following is an article published in the Northland Berry News by the Editor Paul Otten. It outlines some of the amazing health benefits of black currants.

Health Benefits of Black Currants
By Paul M. Otten, Editor

I recently reviewed a 20-pagescientific article on the "preventive and curative effects of biologically active compounds in black currants" by Pal Tamas, a Swedish plant breeder and researcher with over 30 years of experience. It listed no less than 49 scientific references on this subject, practically all from Europe. After you read some of the outstanding nutritional, health and wellness benefits which may be derived from black currant consumption, you may be ready to consider making them part of your meals... and perhaps your, berry farm as well. Consider:

• There are twice as many black currants grown in the world as there are raspberries. Yet, Americans have no idea what they are, can't buy them on the market, and have probably only tasted them by accident in CranCurrantjuice (See "Ocean Spray CranCurrant@ Juice", Northland Berry News, 9/96, p. 21) or possibly a bakery product.
• Almost all of the world's black currants are produced in Poland, Germany, Russia, and UK. Practically all are mechanically harvested. Very few are consumed fresh as fruit. They are mostly consumed in processed forms: juice, jams, pre- serves, pie-fillings, liquors, tea.
• Black currants "contain specific aroma and flavor compounds in such a concentrated form, that we do not find its counterpart in any other fruit in nature" (Pal Tamas, p. I). Our sense of taste is simply not used to such a concentration of compounds. This makes it desirable to dilute products like juice and still end up with a tasty and highly nutritious product.
• The majority of some 60 different phenolic compounds in black currants is produced in the skin and are responsible for the prevention of vitamin C breakdown by inhibiting the activity of the oxidase enzyme.
• Beneficial effects have been recorded in connection with apoplectic stroke, radiation, cold, heart disorders, tuberculosis, whooping cough, pregnancy problems such as vomiting, digestive disorders, chronic vitamin deficiency, deceased premies. Also digestive disorders, chronic acid deficiency, kidney inflammation and stones, uremia, reduction of blood and urine acidity, jaundice, atherosclerosis, hypertension, anemia, exhaustion, night blindness, and more.
• Black currants also contain "several-fold higher concentrations of potassium, iron, vitamin C, organic acids and biologically active plant phenolic compounds than other fruits. In this respect, the black currants constitute a distinct ground among the fruits". Author Pal Tamas lists a few of the concentrated nutritional components of black currants as follows:

Component

Potassium (K)

Iron (Fe)

Organic acids

Vitamin C

Phenolic compounds*

(Vitamin P complex/Bioflavanoids): anthocyanins

leucoanthocyanins

catechins

per 100g

320 mg

7.5 mg

2.3 - 3.9 mg

140 - 220 mg

1500 – 3000 mg

660-2250 mg

Concentration

200-300% higher than most fruits

260-1420 mg

62-330 mg

• These and other compounds in black currants have a synergistic effect in the human organism, so that "black currant juice can prevent, protect and even cure medically distinct diseases". [This is a powerful statement - though not approved by the FDA! - and is adequately backed by considerable research conducted over decades in Europe as well as observed by centuries of use in folk medicine.]

Thus Bulgarian researchers, for example, have been studying for what diseases black currant juice can be prescribed as treatment. (In the U.S. only "approved drugs” can be "prescribed" .for treatment of diseases; "Prescribing "food might get MD s in hot water with the FDA and would certainly be frowned on by the allopathic medical community.)

• Specific medicinal and healing products derived from black currants:

(a) The Uppsala Biomedical Center in Sweden has developed "Pecarin", a medication against diarrhea derived from components in the skin of black currant berries. "

(b) Black currant seed is the only known plant source of stearidonic acid, unsaturated fatty acid prescribed to patients with liver diseases and recently written about in a number of medical journals.

• Finally, "Clinical studies performed in Bulgaria... have shown that it is possible to use black currants as a major therapeutic agent for the treatment of distinct diseases, instead of the dosage of conventional drugs" NBN

Northland Berry News. Winter 99