OT: Berry, berry stupid

The smart folks over at Tufts thought that berries might contain chemicals that were good for cognition. How to test this? They decided to go with rats who live in tiny cages and swim mazes. I think the Tuftians need to eat some more berries or something.

Given that blueberries and strawberries are sold widely as foods, why in the world would you need to test this hypothesis using rats who live in tiny shoe boxes before being killed and tossed in the dumpster? Surely there are already older people who eat different amounts of berries (epidemiological research), or would be willing to do so just to have the free food (clinical research)? Has anyone ever argued that berries are unhealthy? Bad for cognitive performance?

This just makes no sense to me. We are testing a hypothesis that is almost nonsensical in rats - and it costs them their lives. And we leave the translational research decades out. If there is no risk to humans (blueberries aren't a controlled substance as far as I know) and a potential benefit, why not cut right ot the chase and serve granny some fruit? FDA won't let them put the sticker on their berry baskets until there's a double-blind placebo-controlled human trial anyway...

See Tuftian nonsense berry article here: Berries beneficial for brains

To see similar examples of fruitless fruit testing, and a list of companies that do not test their fruit products on animals, check out http://www.caringconsumer.com/products_juice.asp