Functional food containing sweetened dried cranberries could be made more beneficial for diabetics.
Cranberries may already be widely perceived as a functional food, but they have now been linked with health benefits for diabetics, reports NutraIngredients.
Ocean Spray, a producer of cranberry juice, looked into the potential of sweetened dried cranberries (SDC) with higher levels of fibre - and lower levels of sugar - as a functional food.
Research sciences manager at the company Dr Christina Khoo tells the nutraceutical publication: "The less sugar, high-fibre SDC was developed with the needs of the Type 2 diabetic in mind."
Following consumption of the fruit, insulin levels were seen to peak at 15 - compared with a high-point of ten for consumption of normal cranberries.
Meanwhile, ordinary sweetened cranberries were also tested and found to produce a peak insulin response of 22.
The news follows a Beverage Daily report which noted that Ocean Spray had secured patent rights for the use of cranberry seed oil as a potential therapeutic and preventative for some forms of cancer.
