UC Berkeley study finds grapefruit juice might help people keep the size of their waistline and hips in check

Oct 9, 2014 20:03 GMT  ·  By

This Wednesday, scientists with the University of California – Berkeley in the US announced to the world that, according to evidence at hand, drinking grapefruit juice on a regular basis might just be the secret to staying fit.

Thus, in a paper in the journal PLOS ONE, the researchers explain that, having carried out a series of experiments on laboratory mice, they found that grapefruit juice could prevent weight gain even in the context of a high-fat diet.

Helping laboratory mice stay fit

As part of this investigation into the benefits of drinking grapefruit juice, the University of California – Berkeley scientists divided several mice into six groups, all of which were kept on a high-fat diet for an extended period of time.

The only thing that differed was that, whereas the mice in the control group only got to drink water, the ones in the other five were offered clarified, pulp-free grapefruit juice diluted with water at various concentrations.

To make sure that the rodents would not shy away from drinking the grapefruit juice, the researchers added some saccharin to it. The mice in the control group, on the other hand, had glucose and artificial sweeteners added to their water to ensure that it matched the calorie content of the grapefruit juice.

After a while, the scientists took the mice out of their enclosures and weighed them. It was thus discovered that, although they had had access to the same high-fat treats, the rodents that got to drink grapefruit juice gained less weight throughout the duration of the study.

More precisely, the weight gain of the laboratory mice that had grapefruit juice included in their diet was 18% lower than the one documented in the rodents in the control group. “I was surprised by the findings,” researcher Andreas Stahl said in a statement.

Apart from the fact that they didn't gain all that much weight, the mice offered grapefruit juice experienced a 13 to 17% decrease in blood glucose levels and a threefold decrease in insulin levels, the researchers detail in their paper.

The importance of this study

The University of California – Berkeley scientists say that, although it is still unclear how and why this happens, the fact of the matter is that grapefruit juice appears to be well capable of putting a leash on weight gain resulting from a high-fat diet, and even reduce diabetes risk by regulating the body's response to insulin.

“There are many active compounds in grapefruit juice, and we don’t always understand how all those compounds work. Obesity and insulin resistance are such huge problems in our society. These data provide impetus to carry out more studies,” specialist Andreas Stahl wished to stress.

“We see all sorts of scams about nutrition. But these results, based on controlled experiments, warrant further study of the potential health-promoting properties of grapefruit juice,” added researcher Joseph Napoli.