A study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 63rd annual meeting, confirms that eating berries can lower the risk of Parkinson’s disease. The study involved 49,281 men and 80,336 women that were monitored for 20 to 22 years.

The researchers concluded that the women who consumed the most anthocyanins, a class of flavonoids found mostly in berries, had a lower risk of developing the disease than those whose diet contained less or different classes of flavonoids. For men, berry anthocyanins, as well as flavonoids found in apples and oranges and other rich dietary sources, made a significant difference in their freedom from the disease.