This Everyday Fruit Is A Hydration Hero—And May Even Protect Against Cancer.
A new scientific paper suggests a common fruit may have been overlooked in its superfood potential.
Grapes are a source of more than 1,600 compounds, including antioxidants and other polyphenols, making them a great superfood, the paper states.
Dietitians agree. Here's what this means for you.
When you think of a 'superfood,' you're probably imagining something exotic and hard-to-find-at-the-grocery-store, like acai or goji berries. But new research has uncovered a humble superfood that might already have a permanent spot in your fridge.
Yep, a scientific paper published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry argues that we've been sleeping on grapes for far too long. While it's important to point out that the research paper was funded by the California Table Grape Commission, dietitians agree that the argument for grapes as a superfood is spot-on. Here's why.
Meet the experts: Jessica Cording, RD, CDN, is author of The Little Book of Game-Changers; Keri Gans, RDN, is author of The Small Change Diet
What did the paper find?
The scientific paper first analyzes what superfoods are, and points out that grapes are often overlooked in favor of fellow fruits like berries, even though they have similar health benefits.
The paper then notes that grapes are a source of more than 1,600 different biological compounds, including antioxidants and polyphenols like flavonoids, anthocyanidins, catechins, phenolic acids, and resveratrol. The paper also highlights more than 60 peer-reviewed studies on grapes and their health benefits, breaking down their potential support of good cardiovascular health. (Among other things, grapes can help relax blood vessels and support health circulation.)
The study cites clinical trials that show grapes can support brain health, skin health, gut health, and eye health, too. 'Thus, based on actual scientific data, grapes have earned what should be a prominent position in the superfood family,' the researcher argues.
What can grapes do for your health?
For starters, grapes are rich in antioxidants like resveratrol, which could support heart health and even reduce inflammation, says Keri Gans, RDN, author of The Small Change Diet. 'They contain about 82 percent water, making them naturally hydrating, plus they provide vitamin C and potassium, which are great for skin and blood pressure.'
Jessica Cording, RD, CDN, author of The Little Book of Game-Changers, says she regularly suggests her clients mix in some grapes in their diet. 'The main reasons I recommend grapes to clients—besides their versatility in sweet and savory dishes—are for their content of vitamin C and other antioxidants,' she says. 'Resveratrol is the most well-known antioxidant found in grapes, and it has been noted with anti-inflammatory benefits.'
Grapes specifically support heart health, brain health, improved immune system functions, and may even provide protection against some cancers, Cording says.
What are antioxidants and polyphenols?
Antioxidants are compounds that protect your cells from damage caused by free radicals (unstable molecules that are linked to several diseases), Gans explains. 'Polyphenols, a type of antioxidant found in plant foods, are especially known for their anti-inflammatory properties and heart-healthy benefits,' she says.
What are some other great superfoods?
The word 'superfood' is a little controversial, and even the paper's author pointed out that there's no agreed-on definition among experts when it comes to what constitutes a superfood.
Gans is also wary of using this word to describe foods. 'It suggests one food can work magic, when health is really about your overall eating pattern,' she says. 'That said, nutrient-packed picks like blueberries, salmon, lentils, leafy greens, and nuts all offer powerful benefits.'
Apparently, you can add grapes to that list, too!
You Might Also Like
Jennifer Garner Swears By This Retinol Eye Cream
These New Kicks Will Help You Smash Your Cross-Training Goals
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
NFL players can still use smelling salts as long as not provided by teams
NFL players will be allowed to use 'smelling salts' during games after all. The NFLPA sent a memo to players on Wednesday saying that the ban that the league informed teams about on Tuesday only prohibits team employees from distributing smelling salts and any other ammonia inhalant during pregame activities, games and halftime on the sideline or locker rooms. 'The NFL Players Association is aware of the memo issued by the league Tuesday regarding the use of smelling salts and ammonia capsules,' said the memo to players, which was obtained by The Associated Press. 'We were not notified of this club policy change before the memo was sent out. To clarify, this policy does not prohibit player use of these substances, but rather it restricts clubs from providing or supplying them in any form. The NFL has confirmed this to us.' The memo from the league prohibited any club personnel from providing or supplying products such as ammonia capsules, inhalers, ammonia in a cup, and any form of 'smelling salts.' The league cited a warning issued from the Food and Drug Administration in 2024 that there was no evidence citing the 'safety or efficacy' of the products and that they have the potential to mask symptoms of concussions. Smelling salts and other similar products have been a staple on NFL sidelines for years with many players believing they can provide a sudden jolt of energy or alertness. ___ AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi contributed to this report ___ AP NFL:
Forbes
17 minutes ago
- Forbes
What Is Legionnaires' Disease? NYC Outbreak Has Left 70 Sick, 3 Dead
This is what can happen when bad stuff in mist gets, well, missed. A Legionnaires' disease outbreak in New York City has already left at least 70 people sick and three dead. All of these cases have been occurring in Central Harlem, which made the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene suspect that something was amiss about the mist being emitted by the cooling towers in the area. Testing of 11 cooling towers there subsequently revealed the presence of Legionella pneumophila bacteria, which the NYC DOHMH believes caused the outbreak. Cooling Towers Seem To Be The Source of the Legionnaires' Disease Outbreak As you can imagine, cooling towers normally should not have such dangerous bacteria in them. Cooling towers are those things on the roofs of buildings that are part of the cooling systems such as air conditioning systems for the buildings. These towers help disperse heat from the buildings into the air in the form of a vapor or mist. Although such cooling towers are not exactly safe enough to lick, the mist that they emit shouldn't normally contain dangerous microbes. But when any water source remains too stagnant for too long with too little cleaning and disinfection, too many different nasty things can grow in it. Legionella bacteria is one of the more dangerous microbes that can enter and grow in such water. Such contamination can essentially turn a cooling tower or whatever might be dispersing water droplets from that source into a Legionella spray bottle or aroma therapy dispenser of sorts. Therefore, if you inhale the resulting vapor or mist, you could end inhaling a whole lot of Legionella. From there the Legionella can get into your lungs and give you Legionnaire's disease, which could bring a legion of problems. But more on that later. That's the typical way of getting infected with Legionella and not through person-to-person transmission. When someone has a legionellosis, which is a Legionella infection, you don't have to treat them as if they are radioactive. But you do want to find what water source might be harboring Legionella like a water fountain, swimming pool, air conditioning system, sauna, hot spring or dental equipment. Legionella Can Cause Other Things Besides Legionnaires' Disease What Legionella can do depends on where it goes on or in your body. If it comes into contact with any breaks in your skin such as wounds, it can result in a skin or soft tissue infection, otherwise known as cellulitis if you want to sound all medical. If Legionella somehow gets into your sinuses, joints or bloodstream, it can cause infections in such locations as well. Legionella in your bloodstream can end up in your heart, causing bad stuff like endocarditis, myocarditis or pericarditis. Now, just because you inhale Legionella and get a respiratory infection doesn't mean that you will necessarily develop full-blown Legionnaires' disease. You could end up with a much milder respiratory infection. Well, mild if you consider flu-like symptoms to be mild. These certainly aren't pleasant symptoms and include things like fever, chills, headaches, muscle pains, fatigue, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. This is known as Pontiac Fever, not because it makes you desire that now-defunct car, but because the first recognition of this syndrome was in 1968 when an outbreak occurred in Pontiac, Michigan. While Pontiac Fever can put you through a period of significant unpleasantness sort of like having an uncomplicated case of the flu, unlike Legionnaires' disease it should resolve on its own without needing a specific treatment. How Legionnaires' Disease Got Its Name While the aforementioned problems with Legionella may range from not good to very, very bad, getting Legionnaires' Disease tends to shade more on the bad to really, really bad side. Legionnaires' Disease bears its name not because it has anything to do with becoming a Legionnaire, as I have written before for Forbes. This disease and the bacteria causing the disease got their names because they were essentially discovered from a mysterious outbreak occuring at an American Legion meeting held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back in 1976. At that meeting, a number of the American Legion meeting attendees, known as Legionnaires, there came down with a mysterious disease, characterized by an atypical pneumonia with a fairly high death rate. This made headlines and a bit of a panic at the time as people for a while had no idea why this was happening. It sent disease detectives scrambling for a cause until the causative bacteria was identified in January 1977 and subsequently named Legionella due to the event. What Are The Symptoms Of Legionnaires' Disease The symptoms of Legionnaires' Disease usually begin two to 10 days after the bacteria has gotten into your body. You may start with a headache, muscle aches and a high fever, like 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) or higher. Respiratory symptoms like a cough, shortness of breath and chest pain can develop in the ensuing days. The cough may or may not be productive. It could even be bloody. You may also have gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Things could even get to the point where you have mental status changes like confusion. Prompt diagnosis and treatment with antibiotics is key with Legionnaires' Disease. Otherwise the risk is that the disease could progress to life-threatening problems like respiratory failure, septic shock or acute kidney failure. All of these complications are more likely if your immune system is weaker because you are older than 50 years of age or have some type of chronic medical condition or your respiratory system is compromised because you have an existing lung disease or are a smoker. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists the risk of death if you have Legionnaires' Disease as ranging from 10% to 25%, which are odds that no one should like. How Do You Diagnose Legionnaire's Disease You can't tell whether you have Legionnaires' Disease from symptoms alone. A physical exam and chest X-ray can reveal that you have some kind of pneumonia. But pneumonia is a very non-specific term like haircut or pants and simply means that you have some kind of inflammation and fluid in your lungs. Lots of different microbes can cause a pneumonia. Your white blood cell and platelet counts may be off, your liver enzymes may be elevated or your kidney function tests may be decreased. But ultimately the only way to definitively diagnose Legionnaires' Disease is to find Legionella bacteria in your sputum. How Do You Treat Legionnaire's Disease Again, getting a prompt, proper diagnosis is important. The longer you wait, the tougher it is to treat the infection and the more damage can be done. Not all antibiotics are effective against this bacteria. The typical treatment is either fluroquinolones such as levofloxacin and moxifloxacin or macrolides like azithromycin and clarithromycin. These are rather 'big gun' antibiotics that can kill a lot of different microbes. Doxycycline can be used if there is some reason you can't take fluroquinolones or macrolides. Oral antibiotics may suffice if you catch the disease early and things have not progressed to the uh oh range. But if your disease is severe enough to require hospitalization, you may need to go straight to intravenous antibiotics. This will allow you to ensure that you've got high enough levels of the antibiotics to kill the bacteria in your lungs. How Do You Prevent Legionnaire's Disease Naturally, Legionnaire's Disease is the type of thing that you don't want to experience just for the heck of it. It's best to avoid this disease and Legionella as much as possible. So, it's important to be mindful of the different water sources around you and ensure that they are as safe and free of the bacteria as possible. This means keeping any water carrying, storing or dispensing systems up-to-date, working, clean, well-serviced and properly tested. Don't depend on rusty pipes or faucets, drains or pumps that don't work. Remember if proper service and testing of water sources and systems are missed, you could end up with something you don't want in the resulting mist.
CBS News
17 minutes ago
- CBS News
Minnesota pollution agency could have alerted people whose health was at risk from lead exposure sooner
WCCO Investigates discovered the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) could have alerted people whose health was at risk from lead exposure sooner. In late May, the MPCA issued a notice of violation to Gopher Resource in Eagan, Minnesota, for exceeding lead air quality standards from January through March. People living nearby weren't told about the pollution problem until July. The state pollution control agency has the authority to notify people when there's a health risk. The Environmental Protection Agency told WCCO the agency doesn't have to wait three months to do so per federal law — as the MPCA told concerned residents. People who live in the area of impact voiced their concerns at a community meeting last month, and expressed frustration about how the meeting was handled. Battery recycling business, Gopher Resource, released excessive lead emissions for three months earlier this year. The company says it became aware of the elevated readings in early 2025 and alerted the MPCA. The state health department says there's no safe level of lead exposure. "The challenging part here is that we have federal rules which require that we have three months of data to confirm that those lead levels exceeded those federal standards," MPCA Division Director Courtney Ahlers-Nelson said during a virtual meeting. "As a result, after three months of data, we must physically collect the monitoring, the materials from our monitors and then we must review that very closely." The MPCA pointed to the federal Clean Air Act, saying that's why it took so long to notify people. But it was too late for anyone to take precautions. The Environmental Protection Agency told WCCO, "The Clean Air Act does not prohibit sharing data before the three-month rolling calculation is done." The EPA did say there is a time lag to process a day's sample. Here's some of what the MPCA told WCCO in response: "It is a delicate balance of sharing information and causing undue public concern and unjustified damage to a company's reputation, and we continually review our processes within MPCA and take public feedback into account. Spikes in monitoring can sometimes be attributed to monitoring equipment malfunctions or environmental anomalies, and we need to be certain of what the data shows." It added that the information they shared was part of an active investigation and, under state law, was considered non-public. Here's the bottom line: The community has said they want the MPCA to alert them as soon as possible when there's a pollution problem suspected that can impact health — and the agency can. Already, a state lawmaker has called for the legislative auditor to look into how this was handled. The legislative auditor told WCCO the office has not yet made a decision about a special review. MPCA reports there is also an open investigation into hazardous waste management and stormwater management at Gopher Resource.
