Tart Cherry

What It Is

“Tart cherry” (often Montmorency cherry) refers to the sour, anthocyanin-rich varieties of Prunus cerasus commonly taken as juice concentrate, powder, or capsule. Unlike sweet eating cherries, the appeal is not flavor but dense quantities of polyphenols — especially anthocyanins — often standardized in supplements. Human trials have used intakes ranging from ~30–60 mL of 100 % concentrate twice daily to encapsulated extracts standardized for polyphenol content.

How It Works

The rationale is largely biochemical and inflammatory-modulating:

• Anthocyanin-mediated inflammation modulation — Anthocyanins influence enzymes such as COX-1 and COX-2, shifting the production of downstream inflammatory mediators. This does not work in the same pharmacologic amplitude as NSAIDs but exerts a diet-scale down-regulation of inflammatory tone.
• Antioxidant load and redox buffering — Tart cherry polyphenols scavenge reactive oxygen species and indirectly up-regulate endogenous antioxidant defenses, reducing exercise-induced oxidative stress and secondary tissue damage.
• Urate dynamics — Some trials show reduced serum uric acid and fewer gout flares, likely through inhibition of xanthine oxidase and improved renal clearance of urate; the magnitude is modest but directionally consistent.
• Possible sleep effect via melatonin — Tart cherries contain small amounts of melatonin and may influence circadian signaling, contributing to better sleep onset or efficiency in some studies.

Why It’s Important

Tart cherry has a rare combination in nutrition science: it is food-derived, low-risk, and prospectively studied in human trials for specific endpoints.

• Exercise recovery and muscle soreness — Repeated demonstrations in athletes and recreational lifters that delayed onset muscle soreness and strength loss after intense eccentric training can be blunted. This has cultural adoption in endurance sport for multi-day recovery windows.
• Gout and uric acid-related morbidity — For individuals with gout, even a modest reduction in flare frequency is clinically meaningful because cumulative flares drive progressive joint damage.
• Low-risk alternative or adjunct to NSAIDs — For individuals who cannot take NSAIDs chronically (renal risk, GI risk, cardiovascular risk), nutritional strategies with partial overlap in mechanism are of outsized interest.
• Sleep and cardiometabolic implications — If sleep consolidation improves for a subset of users, there may be downstream benefits in metabolic, cognitive, and recovery domains.

Considerations

• Dose and preparation matter — Most positive trials use concentrated juice or standardized extracts. Drinking “some cherry juice” is not equivalent to controlled anthocyanin intake.
• Sugar load in juice forms — Liquid concentrates typically deliver considerable carbohydrate; this is relevant for diabetes management, weight loss attempts, and late-evening use if glycemic control is a priority.
• Interactions and medical nuance — People with gout flares on urate-lowering therapy, chronic kidney disease, or polypharmacy should treat tart cherry as a therapeutic add-on and discuss with a clinician, especially if considering high-dose extract rather than food-level exposure.
• Expected magnitude — Effects are modest, not curative. Tart cherry shifts probabilities and trajectories — fewer flares, faster recovery, slightly better sleep — rather than transforming baselines.
• Quality and adulteration — Anthocyanin yield varies widely by cultivar, harvest, processing, and storage. “Cherry-flavored” products are not reliable surrogates for polyphenol content.