The health benefits of drinking tart cherry juice have been surfacing on websites across the web for the passed few months. Recently Dr. Oz discussed the benefits on his show and he called it the Ultimate Antioxidant! I went out and bought some the next day. It is sweet and tart, but tasty. Would actually make a great martini (Ozitini), but then that might defeat the purpose of the health benefits.
Amazing Antioxidants: Tart Cherry Juice
He talked about the 3 main benefits of drinking tart cherry juice daily.
1) Pain Relief – Testing showed that athletes felt less pain in their joints and muscles because of the anti-inflammatory effects of the tart cherry juice. The tart cherry juice helps to turn off an enzyme in your body that promotes inflammation, similar to taking Advil, but the tart cherry juice is the natural way to go.
2) Fights Heart Disease – Helps to reduce your triglyceride (the fat around your red blood cells) count and can lower your bad cholesterol count. These numbers can get high depending on things you eat like, bad carbs and alcohol. The tart cherry juice will hep to get the numbers back to a normal range.
3) Sleep Aid – We have so many things in our environment that can disrupt or melatonin, like the computer screen, watching TV, texting, etc. Tart cherry juice helps to make your melatonin levels overflow.
Dr. Oz recommends having the tart cherry juice with dinner since your melatonin levels will go up it will help you fall asleep. He did not say how many ounces, but I started with 2 ounces because there is 130 calories in an 8 ounce glass. My triglyceride count just came back borderline high at 170, so I am going to try this for the next few months to see if it helps the number drop.