Grapefruit juice shown to stop mice from gaining weight

A new study has suggested that drinking grapefruit juice might help curb obesity to a significant degree.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, whose report will be published in PLOS ONE this month, studied two groups of mice on the same high-fat diet. One group drank clarified, non-pulp grapefruit juice, whereas the control was given water in its place.

It emerged that those fed the fruit juice gained 18 percent less weight than the water-drinking mice, showing improved levels of glucose, insulin and a type of fat called triacylglycerol as a result of the regimen.

The positive effects of grapefruit consumption have been touted in fad diets before, but the Berkeley scientists – whose work was funded by the California Grapefruit Growers Cooperative – described previous studies as "small, not well-controlled and contradictory".

"We see all sorts of scams about nutrition," commented Joseph Napoli, lead author of the report. "But these results, based on controlled experiments, warrant further study of the potential health-promoting properties of grapefruit juice."