Midnight Drop – 100% Organic Blackcurrant Juice 3 L

Scientifically Supported Health Benefits of Blackcurrant

1. Vitamin C — and why the juice figure is not the fruit figure

Blackcurrant is among the most vitamin-C-dense fruits grown in Europe. Eight cultivars measured on one trial site ranged from 162 to 284 mg per 100 g of fresh berries [2], and the USDA reference figure for raw blackcurrant is 181 mg per 100 g [1]. Freshly pressed juice has been measured at 145 to 221 mg per 100 ml [4] and at 150 mg per 100 ml [5]. Those are figures taken at the press. Vitamin C is the least stable thing in a bottle: one published analysis of a processed blackcurrant juice found 3.78 mg per 100 ml [24]. The fruit is rich; what reaches the glass depends on pressing, heat, oxygen and time, and only analysis of the finished product at the end of its shelf life can establish it.

2. Vitamin C and the immune system

The authorised European wording is that vitamin C contributes to the normal function of the immune system. It may be used only for a food that is at least a source of vitamin C [6]. For a beverage that threshold is 6 mg per 100 ml, and “high in vitamin C” is 12 mg per 100 ml — half the thresholds that apply to solid food, because beverages are assessed against 7.5 per cent of the reference intake rather than 15 per cent [7]. The 80 mg reference intake is the same in both cases.

3. Collagen, skin and connective tissue

Vitamin C contributes to normal collagen formation for the normal function of skin, bones, cartilage, gums, teeth and blood vessels — six separate authorised claims, each resting on the same condition of use as above [6]. It also contributes to normal energy-yielding metabolism, normal functioning of the nervous system, normal psychological function, the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, the regeneration of the reduced form of vitamin E, and increased iron absorption [6]. These belong to the vitamin, not to the plant.

4. Protection of cells from oxidative stress

This too is an authorised vitamin C claim [6], and in blackcurrant’s case there is human measurement behind it. In a six-week trial, 66 adults who habitually ate fewer than two portions of fruit and vegetables a day drank a blackcurrant juice drink; plasma vitamin C rose from 34.6 to 73.8 µmol/l and plasma F2-isoprostanes, a marker of lipid oxidation, were lower than in the placebo group (225 against 254 pg/ml) [8]. The dose was a litre a day, in people starting from a poor baseline diet. “Antioxidant properties” on its own is not an authorised claim.

5. Endothelial function

The same six-week trial measured flow-mediated dilation, an ultrasound measure of how well an artery widens as blood flow rises. It improved from 5.8 to 6.9 per cent on the higher dose while the placebo group fell from 6.0 to 5.1 per cent [8]. An acute crossover trial in 23 adults, using a 200 ml beverage carrying 711 mg of anthocyanins with a high-fat meal, also improved flow-mediated dilation over six hours [9]. The honest counterweight: a single 250 ml glass of a 20 per cent blackcurrant juice drink produced no acute change in vascular reactivity or endothelial markers at all, and urinary recovery of the delphinidin glycosides was 0.021 per cent of the dose taken [10]. Dose and duration appear to decide everything here.

6. Postprandial glucose and insulin — the dose that worked, and the ones that did not

Twenty-three adults drank low-sugar fruit drinks containing 150, 300 or 600 mg of blackcurrant anthocyanins immediately before a meal providing 62 g of carbohydrate. Only the 600 mg dose did anything: early glucose fell by 0.34 mmol/l·h and early insulin by 8.77 mU/l·h, with a large reduction in the gut hormone GIP [11]. The 150 and 300 mg doses were null. A second group found the same pattern from the other direction — a single 600 mg dose had no effect on postprandial glucose, insulin or triglycerides, but eight days of 210 mg a day raised Matsuda insulin sensitivity by 22 per cent and lowered glucose response to an oral load by 8 per cent [12].

7. Fat oxidation and exercise — what was actually tested

This is the largest body of blackcurrant trials, and almost all of it used capsules of concentrated anthocyanin-rich extract rather than juice. A systematic review of 21 randomised crossover trials, at 105 to 315 mg of anthocyanins a day, found an overall effect on performance of d = 0.44, largest in intermittent and team sports, absent in hypoxia, with roughly nine of the 21 trials null; fat oxidation was the most consistent outcome, rated moderate certainty against low certainty for performance [13]. An earlier meta-analysis pooled a performance effect of 0.45 [14]. In one representative trial, 14 men taking 105 mg of anthocyanins a day for seven days raised fat oxidation by 27 per cent at 65 per cent of VO₂max and completed a 16.1 km time trial 2.4 per cent faster [15]. None of this transfers to a glass of juice without stating the dose gap.

8. Bone density after menopause

The best-designed longer trial in the blackcurrant literature gave 40 peri- and early postmenopausal women 392 or 784 mg of blackcurrant powder a day for six months. Whole-body bone mineral density loss was reduced against control, significantly only at the higher dose, and serum P1NP, a marker of bone formation, rose; four other bone markers were unchanged [16]. It is a pilot study from a single group, using capsules. Promising, and not yet replicated.

What the anthocyanins actually are

Blackcurrant carries four principal anthocyanins, and their rank order in juice is remarkably consistent across independent laboratories: delphinidin-3-O-rutinoside first, then cyanidin-3-O-rutinoside, then delphinidin-3-O-glucoside, then cyanidin-3-O-glucoside, with the two rutinosides together making up roughly 70 to 80 per cent of the total [3,4,5]. Citric acid dominates the acid profile, with malic second [2,26].

What the press leaves behind

Across 21 European cultivars, anthocyanins measured 904 to 4595 µg per g in the berries, 141 to 1028 µg per g in the juice, and 3492 to 19852 µg per g in the press residue of skins and seeds — the discarded fraction is three to twenty times richer than the juice. The same study found that variation in juice anthocyanins was unrelated to variation in the berries, and that juice colour does not predict anthocyanin content [3]. A juice figure cannot be inferred from a fruit figure.

What happens in the bottle

Temperature governs almost everything. Over 52 weeks of storage, anthocyanin retention was 68 to 78 per cent at 4 °C, 23 to 29 per cent at 20 °C, and effectively nil at 37 °C; dissolved oxygen was only marginally important by comparison [4]. A twelve-month industrial-scale study found monomeric anthocyanin losses of 81 to 84 per cent at room temperature against 13 to 26 per cent refrigerated, while sugars and acids were largely unchanged [18]. Pasteurisation itself costs roughly a fifth to two-fifths of the anthocyanins in a single pass [5].

The seeds are a different product

Gamma-linolenic acid, at 8 to 17 per cent of total fatty acids, and tocopherols at 32 to 246 mg per 100 g, are figures for blackcurrant seed oil [19]. The seed is pressed separately and leaves with the press residue. The whole fresh berry contains 0.41 g of fat per 100 g in total [1], and no published measurement of gamma-linolenic acid in pressed blackcurrant juice could be located. Seed oil and juice are two products with two literatures.

What European regulators have concluded

There is no authorised EU health claim for blackcurrant. One claim was assessed and rejected: anthocyanins from Ribes nigrum and improvement of visual adaptation to the dark, where the panel found that no human studies had been provided from which conclusions could be drawn [20]. A further set of blackcurrant claims submitted before 2008 remains unevaluated among the botanical claims still on hold. Vitamin C is the only authorised route. Blackcurrant leaf is a separate matter entirely — a traditional herbal medicinal product with its own European monograph, for adults only, and nothing in it applies to the fruit or the juice [25].

What has not been studied

There is no blackcurrant trial with clinical cold or respiratory-infection endpoints. Both dedicated cognition trials reported no effect on cognitive performance [17]. The only joint trials used blackcurrant seed oil, not fruit. Human gut-microbiota work is limited to two small trials of extract capsules. No analytical vitamin K figure for blackcurrant could be found in any accessible source, and the figure that circulates belongs to red and white currants.

Safety, and who should be careful

Blackcurrant juice has been well tolerated in the trials above, with no established upper intake. Blackcurrant is not on the European list of mandatory declarable allergens, but allergy is documented: one case report describes throat symptoms and difficulty swallowing on eating fresh red and black currant, in a woman with cross-reactivity to peach, apricot and nectarine [21]. The fruit is low in oxalate, with no detectable soluble oxalate [22], yet 330 ml of the juice measurably raised urinary oxalate excretion alongside urinary pH and citrate in a study of twelve men — favourable for one kind of kidney stone, less so for another [23]. The juice is markedly acidic, measured at pH 2.86 [24], and unmodified blackcurrant concentrate caused measurable enamel loss in an in situ study [27]; the usual advice for acidic drinks applies. One acute trial at a high anthocyanin dose inhibited platelet aggregation [9], which is worth knowing for anyone taking antiplatelet medication. There is no published interaction case for blackcurrant fruit or juice with anticoagulants; the warfarin caution that circulates belongs to the seed oil as a source of gamma-linolenic acid, and rests on no human cases.

References

1. USDA Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central: Currants, european black, raw. FDC ID 173963.
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6. Commission Regulation (EU) No 432/2012, Annex.
7. Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex XIII Part A; Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006, Annex.
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20. EFSA NDA Panel. Scientific opinion on the substantiation of health claims related to various food(s)/food constituent(s), including anthocyanins from Ribes nigrum L. and improvement of visual adaptation to the dark (ID 2750). EFSA Journal. 2011;9(4):2204. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2011.2204
21. Rojas Pérez-Ezquerra P, Vazquez de la Torre Gaspar M, de Barrio Fernández M, et al. Currant allergy and the Rosaceae-grass pollen allergy syndrome: a case report. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2007;98(5):480–482. doi:10.1016/S1081-1206(10)60763-6
22. Nguyễn HVH, Savage GP. Oxalate content of New Zealand grown and imported fruits. J Food Compos Anal. 2013;31(2):180–184. doi:10.1016/j.jfca.2013.06.001
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25. EMA/HMPC. EU herbal monograph on Ribes nigrum L., folium. EMA/HMPC/745353/2016, adopted 2017-09-19.
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