Drinking Cranberry Juice Every Day Has An Unexpected Effect On Your Cholesterol

Keeping your cholesterol in check is vitally important for the health of your heart and circulatory system. Having too much cholesterol in your blood can cause deposits called "plaques" to form on the walls of your blood vessels. As these plaques grow larger, they can block the flow of blood. Also, they can break off and form clots, which puts you at risk for heart attack or stroke (per Mayo Clinic).

We often hear about foods that we shouldn't eat if we want to have normal cholesterol values, such as saturated fats and trans fats. However, there are also foods that we should be eating to ensure good cardiovascular health. For example, foods that are good sources of fiber and healthy fats can help reduce cholesterol. There are also foods that may help bring down your cholesterol through other means, like the phytochemicals that they contain. One such food is cranberry juice.

A 2024 meta-analysis and systematic review published in Nutrients looked at 16 studies dealing with cranberry's effects on cholesterol. The study was not limited to just cranberry juice, so it also included supplementation in the form of capsules, powder, and tablets of varying doses. The length of supplementation ranged from two weeks to six months. After analyzing all of the gathered data, they determined that consuming cranberry in all of the forms studied helped improve total cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (the "good" type that helps shuttle the "bad" low-density lipoprotein, also known as LDL, cholesterol out of the body).

However, the study authors did urge caution in interpreting the study's results because there have only been a few randomized controlled trials dealing with cranberry and its effects on cholesterol. More research is needed, they said, before making a standard recommendation to use cranberry supplements and cranberry juice to lower cholesterol.

Although there isn't enough evidence at this point to make a solid recommendation for how to use cranberry juice to improve your cholesterol, it could be helpful to look at what scientists have found to be effective in their studies.

A 2018 randomized controlled trial found in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition had its participants drink 400 milliliters (about 14 ounces) of cranberry juice for eight weeks. In this study, it was found that cranberry juice helped increase people's levels of HDL.

Also, a 2021 randomized controlled trial published in the journal Nutrients looked at how cranberry juice supplementation affected various heart disease risk factors in middle-aged adults with overweight and obesity. To carry out the study, half of the people drank 500 milliliters (about 16 ounces) of 27% cranberry juice every day. The other half drank a placebo juice. After eight weeks, the groups switched places. Blood samples and vascular measurements were performed at the beginning of the study and after supplementation ended. Among the study's findings was the fact that the concentration of large LDL participles and LDL size significantly increased without affecting LDL concentration. HealthCentral notes that participle size matters because smaller participle size is associated with greater heart disease risk.