Add Strawberries to the List of Antioxidant Fruits, Features Neuro-Protector Fisetin

Fight free radicals, cancer, wrinkles, aging and other disease. How?! Why, strawberries of course. You can add the bright red berry to the popularly touted beneficial antioxidant health effects of bluberries and wine.

Recent research by San Diego's own Salk Institute for Biological Studies shows that strawberries are chock full of a compound called fisetin, an antioxidant with many purported health benefits.

The height of strawberry season is in the spring, the season really ended in May, but the folks that run the Santee Farmers Market ensure me that "Rey Rivers strawberries are year round, they are the best, sweets berry's you have ever eaten," of course available at the . In case they aren't there or it's not Wednesday, they should have some just down the street at .

According to a study in the scientific journal PLoS ONE, fisetin helps to combat juvenile diabetes and protect neurons in the brain.

Fisetin is found in smaller amounts in other fruits and vegetables, but strawberries have been found to be the best source, according to David Schubert, head of the
Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute

The neuron protective properties of fisetin include easing of the effects of diabetes and potentially Alzheimer's disease. Researchers gave mice afflicted with high blood sugar a fisetin-rich diet and their diabetes symptoms eased.

To equal the dosage given to the lab mice, a person would have to eat 37 strawberries a day. Because of the high number necessary to eat, researchers aren't suggesting a dietary change, but that a supplement could be taken as a pill.

City News Service contributed to this report.