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The Benefits of Lionberry

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Elderberry Phytochemicals Work in Our Bodies

  • Cancer Health: Elderberries contain anthocyanins that may reduce the risk of cancer and stop colon cancer cells from growing by up to 60%.

  • Blood Sugar Health: Elderberry may help prevent diabetes by fighting insulin resistance, lowering blood glucose levels, and reducing inflammation.

  • Gut Health: Elderberries are high in fiber, which may help promote gut health.

  • Skin Health: Elderberries contain antioxidants that may help protect skin from pollution, smoke, and UV radiation.

Elderberry Plant Benefits Protect Us From The Crowd

  • Immune Health: Elderberry contains anthocyanins, which can attach to viral glycoproteins and prevent viruses from entering host cells. Elderberry extracts have shown inhibitory effects on Influenza A, B, and H1N1 viruses.

  • Suppress Viruses: Elderberry contains high amounts of polyphenolic compounds, such as flavanols, phenolic acids, and anthocyanins. These polyphenols can suppress the activity of viruses and bacteria.

  • Immune Boosting: Elderberry contains acid polysaccharides, such as pectins, which may boost immune function by stimulating macrophages.

The below information is cited from Specialty crop science. (Jenny Blair)

Elderberry Juice Might Speed Up Thinking in Elderly People With Early Dementia (Musich et al., 2025; RL 7) 

What people eat can affect their brain health. Scientists know that eating plants with certain natural chemicals can help with memory. In this study, they wanted to see if these chemicals can help older people with early dementia. They compared juice from American elderberry and a flavor drink that tasted the same. 

Twenty-four elderly people with very mild dementia took part in the study. They took tests, such as word puzzles, to measure how mentally sharp they were. Then, three times a day for 6 months, they took a teaspoon of juice. Some people took elderberry juice the whole time. Others took the flavor drink. Which juice each person took was kept secret until the end of the study. At 3 months and again at 6 months, the elderly people took the thinking tests again. Between the beginning and end of the study, scientists compared test results. 

Thinking seemed to speed up slightly in the group of people who took the elderberry juice. It did not speed up in the group who took the flavor drink. 

The study was small and scientists are still not certain that the juice helped. But the results were promising. Bigger studies should help us understand how American elderberry juice might affect brain health.

 
 
Natural Substances in American Elderberries Protected Mice From Stroke Injury (Banji et al., 2022; RL 9)

Scientists are studying the brain health benefits of natural chemicals called anthocyanins. Anthocyanins occur in some plant foods, including colorful berries like elderberries. They fight inflammation in the body. Inflammation is a complex immune response meant to protect the body, but it can also harm the body. Some brain disorders occur with inflammation, such as Alzheimer’s. Inflammation can also play a role in depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.

After mice eat anthocyanins, they show up in the bloodstream within 20 minutes. Likely a similar thing happens in humans. Some also travel down the gut, where they may nourish the good bacteria living there. Anthocyanins also wind up in the liver, heart, kidney, and brain. Their ability to cross from the blood into the brain surprised some scientists. The brain has a protective barrier to keep out many chemicals. In the brain, anthocyanins interfere with inflammation in a number of ways.

In one study, scientists added inflammatory chemicals to mouse brain immune cells. As expected, the cells erupted with an inflammatory response. Then they tried again after first adding American elderberry extract. This time, the cells’ inflammatory response was mostly blocked. The scientists believe this was due to anthocyanins in the elderberry.

Other experiments have found possible protective effects of anthocyanins. These experiments looked at anthocyanins in other plants. Benefits occurred in animal studies of alcohol, high-fat diets, and Huntington’s disease. In humans, benefits have been seen in studies of early dementia.

Much science remains to be done on anthocyanins. We do not know enough about the right dose for human beings, nor how much might be too much. Anthocyanins might interact with medications in ways we don’t yet understand. And they might affect different people differently.

 
 
American Elderberry May Protect Brain from Stroke Damage (Banji et al., 2022; RL 8)

Scientists tested whether two plant extracts could protect against brain damage from stroke. They tested elderberry and an African plant called Sutherlandia. Groups of mice eating normal diets were compared for two months. Some had dried Sutherlandia powder added to their food. Others had dried American elderberry powder added to their food. Still others ate a normal diet with no supplements. 

Under anesthesia, all the mice had surgery. In most of the groups, scientists interrupted, then restored blood flow to the brain, like a stroke. For comparison, some mice had surgery without the stroke. 

When the mice woke up, scientists tested their coordination. They also examined the mice’s brains. Among mice that had strokes, those that had eaten the plant powders were more coordinated. Their brains also showed less damage. Mice that had not eaten the powders were less coordinated and had more damage. 

Scientists know oxidation and inflammation can hurt the brain after stroke. In mice, eating these plants before stroke seemed to cut down on this type of brain damage. American elderberry can reduce brain damage from stroke in mice. It’s worth exploring whether the plant could help humans in this way too.

American Elderberry Extracts Inhibit Brain Tumor Cells In Lab (Lamy et al., 2018; RL 8)

Glial cells protect and nourish nerve cells. Glioma is a type of brain cancer that happens when glial cells divide, get out of control, and form a mass (a tumor). 

Like healthy parts of the body, a tumor needs a blood supply, because blood delivers oxygen. These tumors direct the body to create new blood vessels. As gliomas grow, their new blood vessels do a spotty job delivering oxygen. This lack of oxygen turns on genes, or instructions inside the cells, that make the glioma harder to treat. 

American elderberry contains natural health-giving chemicals. In this study, researchers wanted to build on a 2006 study that found elderberry may fight cancer. They used extracts from elderberry and elderflower. They also lined up individual chemicals derived from elderberry, plus a chemical mix. They wanted to see how each of these affected glioma cells and blood vessel cells.

In containers, they bathed glioma cells in extracts, individual chemicals, or the mix. To simulate what happens in real tumors, they reduced oxygen supply to some cells. 

The extracts, especially the berry ones, reduced some glioma cells’ tendency to divide. This was true both when normal and low amounts of oxygen were present. Individual chemicals also did this. They worked better as a mix than on their own. Berry extracts revved up self-destruction in blood vessel cells and some glioma cells. 

These results add to evidence that elderberry might inhibit cancers.

A government ministry and a university in Quebec, Canada funded the study. The researchers declared they had no financial conflicts of interest.

 
American Elderberries Have Anti-Cancer Properties (Thole et al., 2006; RL 9)

Elderberries contain natural health-giving chemicals. These chemicals can fight cancer, boost the immune system, and weaken flu virus. European elderberry has been bred for many years as a medicinal plant. It is used in some popular drugstore medicines. American elderberry is more wild, but it too has been traditionally used for medicine. In this study, scientists compared both kinds of elderberry for their cancer-fighting powers. They used chemistry to isolate natural chemicals from each type of berry. Then they ran tests on the chemicals. Both elderberry types proved able to combat cancer processes in these lab tests.

Elderberry Might Help With Blood Sugar and Fat Burning (Teets et al., 2024; RL 8)

Some scientists suspect healthful chemicals in berries may help people control their weight. The chemicals might help by nourishing the beneficial bacteria living in our intestines. 

Scientists asked overweight people to participate in a study using American elderberry juice. In this study, 18 people spent one week drinking either elderberry juice or an imitation. Then each person switched over to the other drink for one week. During the study, the participants ate a controlled diet and gave samples of blood and poop. Scientists checked blood sugar and studied bacteria in the poop. 

After the period of drinking elderberry juice, people’s bodies changed. They had slightly more healthful bacteria in their poop. Their blood sugar was better. And fat burning increased. These changes did not occur after the imitation drink. This study suggests American elderberry might help with gut health and weight management. Still, this was a small, brief study, so the results aren’t definitive. Longer studies with more people will help give a clearer picture.

Unlike European Elderberries, American Elderberries Lack Certain Toxic Chemicals (Appenteng et al., 2021; RL 9)

Some plants naturally contain small amounts of chemicals that can turn into poison. These chemicals help protect the plants from disease and from being eaten. Elderberries in Europe have some of these chemicals, which can turn into cyanide in the body. So these chemicals have to be destroyed to make healthy drinks, foods, or supplements. This may be done by heating, which could destroy healthful chemicals in elderberries. 

Scientists checked to see if American elderberries also contain these chemicals. They tested store-bought American elderberry juice. They also tested seeds, skin, pulp, stems, juice, and berries from the American plant. 

Store-bought juice had none of the chemicals. Small amounts were in the fresh plant parts, especially in stems and unripe berries. But levels were too low to be harmful, and they were much lower than even the harmless levels in fresh apple juice. 

Products made from American elderberry may not need as much processing.

References to heat & processing based on interviews.

 

 
Does Freezing Affect Elderberry Anthocyanin Levels? (Johnson et al., 2016; RL 9)

American elderberries have beneficial chemicals called anthocyanins and polyphenols. Freezing is a useful way to preserve fresh elderberries. But it hasn’t been clear how freezing affects the anthocyanins and polyphenols.

The scientists planted three different types of American elderberry. They harvested ripe berries, deep-froze them for one week, thawed them, and made juice. They measured levels of the two chemical types in the juice. Then the scientists froze juice samples. They thawed and tested the juices again after 3 months, 6 months, and 9 months in the freezer.

They found that anthocyanin and polyphenol levels differed among the cultivars’ fresh juice. Bob Gordon had the highest levels of both.

For polyphenols, all three lost some in the first three months of storage, then losses leveled off. At the 9-month mark, all three had at least 72% of their original amounts of polyphenol.

As for anthocyanins, the scientists checked two types: monomeric and individual anthocyanins.

For monomeric anthocyanins, all three cultivars lost large amounts during frozen storage. Bob Gordon had the highest levels by far after 9 months—about 58% of what it started with. Wyldewood had 28% and Adams II had 18% of their initial anthocyanins after 9 months.

Individual anthocyanins were less stable than monomeric during frozen storage. For all three cultivars, individual anthocyanins were almost gone by 9 months.

United States government agencies funded this study.

European Elderberry Killed Flu But Not Covid Virus In A Lab (Eggers M. et al., 2022; RL 7)

Viruses that infect the lungs often spread down from the nose, mouth, and throat. Gargling with rinses or with certain natural products may cut down on virus spread. That could reduce sickness and the spread of sickness.

In this study, researchers tested several plant-based liquids in a lab. They wanted to see how well these liquids do at killing viruses. In other words, they studied the liquids’ ability to be virucidal. They tested green tea, chokecherry juice, elderberry juice, and pomegranate juice. They tested flu virus and SARS-CoV-2, plus a tough virus called MVA.

Each juice or tea was mixed in a container with virus. Then the scientists checked to see how much virus had died off.

Of all the liquids, chokeberry juice was the strongest virucide. It reduced flu virus and SARS-CoV-2 by over 99% in 5 minutes. Chokeberry also knocked back MVA by 96% in 1 minute.

All four liquids reduced influenza virus by over 99% in 5 minutes. Pomegranate juice and green tea cut SARS-CoV-2 by about 80% in 1 minute. But elderberry juice did not significantly kill SARS-CoV-2 in this study.

All scientific studies have limitations. In this study, humans didn’t gargle with the liquids. That’s important because how a substance interacts with viruses in a dish or test tube may differ in people. The scientists added vitamin C to the green tea, though that is not how people usually make it. All the juices were prepared with heating (pasteurization). Heating juice, while it kills harmful germs in the juice, might also change its properties. The elderberry juice in this study came from a German supplier. American elderberries might work differently.

A nonprofit called German Cancer Aid paid for the study. Two of the researchers are partners in a company that makes dietary supplements.

 
Elderberry Shifted the Immune System’s Response to Viruses (Schön et al., 2021; RL 8) 

Scientists studied natural plant chemicals in a commercial elderberry product called Eldosamb. This powdered extract contains health-giving chemicals called anthocyanins. The scientists wanted to learn how the extract interacts with the immune system.

In one part of the experiment, the scientists studied if elderberry could kill a virus called MVA. (The MVA virus has some similarities to coronavirus and flu virus but it is safer to study.) First the scientists infected cow cells with the virus. Then they mixed elderberry in with some containers of cells and not others. Finally they measured virus amounts in the two types of containers and compared. The elderberry strongly reduced virus amounts. It also reduced the virus’s power to infect new cells.

For the other part of the experiment, ten volunteers donated blood. In test tubes, the scientists mixed elderberry powder into the blood. They measured which immune chemicals the blood cells released in response to elderberry. These immune chemicals determine which path the body takes to fight off infection.

They found that elderberry steers immune cells down a path called the TH2 response. In the TH2 path, the body makes antibodies to fight viruses. The TH2 path also hits the brakes on inflammation. (The other path, the TH1 immune response, revs up inflammation. Inflammation can fight cancer cells and some types of germs. But it can be harmful if it goes haywire or lasts too long.) Elderberry can shift the immune response in a way that could be beneficial. 

 
Elderberry Protected Laboratory Cells from Influenza (Roschek et al., 2009; RL 8)

Every plant, including elderberry, contains a mix of natural plant chemicals or compounds. In a dish, scientists mixed an elderberry extract with a strain of flu called H1N1. They found that, in high doses, the extract kept the flu from infecting dog cells in the dish. Normally these cells are sensitive to flu virus. Studying the extract, the scientists found two compounds with anti-viral powers. These compounds, called flavonoids, bind to the virus. This prevents them entering the cells. It’s a little like putting boxing gloves on the hands of a lock-picker. One of the compounds, given on its own, was about as powerful as the anti-viral drug Tamiflu.

This study was not the last word on anti-viral properties of elderberry. Compounds can behave differently in a plant extract than in isolation. They can also behave differently in living beings compared to cells in a dish. But it encouraged scientists to continue studying elderberry.

Elderberry’s Reputation Problem Doing It Right So It Actually Works

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

Elderberry has a reputation problem. People try it and they say it kind of works. Sometimes. Maybe a little. That is not the berry's fault. That is what got done to the berry long before it ever reached the bottle.

So let me start with what this berry can actually do when it is done right. We use the native American elderberry, Sambucus canadensis, fresh-pressed, and it carries roughly ten times the antioxidant punch of a blueberry. It is antiviral, and the anthocyanins are a big part of why, because they can grab onto the proteins a virus uses to get into your cells and gum up the works [11]. It works on your immune system the smart way, nudging the inflammatory signals up or down depending on what your body actually needs instead of just flooring the gas [11]. The anthocyanins feed the good bacteria in your gut like a prebiotic [4]. And when those bacteria break the anthocyanins apart, one of the main things they make is protocatechuic acid, which is the major thing your body turns cyanidin-3-glucoside into [12]. That little molecule slips across the blood-brain barrier and calms inflammation once it gets up there [12]. It works all the way from your gut up to your brain. It is past being a superfruit.

The problem is almost nobody ever gets that berry, because of what happens to it before it reaches them.

We make two products with elderberry. LIONBERRY REGENERATIVE™ HYDRATION and ELDERBERRY SIPS. Neither one is a syrup.

Syrup is fine for pancakes. Thicker is not better. When you cook elderberry down into a syrup you are not concentrating the medicine. You are boiling it off. What you have left is sugar and a sad story about what used to be in there.

Heat is the enemy. Long slow steeping, simmering the berry for hours with spices, that is not doing what people think it is doing. Dehydrating and powdering food changes the cell structure, takes too much heat, and burns off the delicate plant properties. So we do not use dehydrated powder.

Most powdered elderberry comes from overseas. Roughly 95% of the drugstore elderberry on the shelf is powdered European elderberry, Sambucus nigra, dried with heat [7]. The anthocyanins, those deep purple compounds that do the actual work, are fragile. Long heat destroys them [7]. By the time that powder is packed into a capsule the color is faded and the chemistry is gutted. And here is the thing people miss. The color is the medicine. When the purple is gone, the value went with it. A faded capsule is a receipt for something you no longer have.

Spray drying is worse. It shoots the material through hot air, so you get even more heat stress and even more loss [7]. And most of that overseas powder is the whole berry, seeds and all, which means you are grinding in the seed material and a heavier, muddier phytochemical profile than you ever get from clean juice. Juice leaves the seeds behind.

Here is where people get nervous, and where the American berry quietly wins. All elderberry, every species, carries some cyanogenic glycosides in the seeds and the unripe parts. Sambunigrin is the main one [9]. And yes, heat does knock those down. Cooking and heavy processing have been shown to cut cyanogenic glycoside levels way back [10]. That is the real reason so much elderberry, especially the European berry, gets cooked so hard. The higher cyanide load and old tradition push you straight toward heavy heat. But heavy heat is the exact thing that destroys the anthocyanins. So with the European berry you are boxed in. Cook it enough to feel safe and you cook the medicine right out of it.

American elderberry does not put you in that corner. It runs much lower in those compounds to begin with, and when researchers actually measured commercial American elderberry juice, they found no quantifiable trace of them [9]. That is exactly why we can press American elderberry, keep it as a juice, and never have to cook it into oblivion to make it safe. Low cyanide going in means we get to keep the heat low and the anthocyanins high. The European berry forces a choice between safe and potent. The American berry lets us have both.

But it is not just more. It is different. American elderberry carries acylated anthocyanins that European elderberry barely has, if it has them at all [1]. One of the big ones is a real mouthful. Cyanidin-3-O-[6-O-(E)-p-coumaroyl]sambubioside-5-O-glucoside. Forget the name. Remember the one word that matters. Acylated. That little acyl group is armor. It makes the molecule tougher against pH swings, against heat, against oxygen, against time sitting on a shelf [1]. And that armor is not a fun fact for a label. It is the whole reason the berry can do anything once it is inside you.

Most of these anthocyanins do not get absorbed up top in the stomach and the small intestine. That is not a problem. That is the plan. They are supposed to ride all the way down to the colon, because the colon is where the real work happens. The trouble is the colon is alkaline. The minute elderberry leaves the acid of the stomach and hits that alkaline stretch, a bare unprotected anthocyanin starts coming apart. The acyl armor is what holds it together long enough to arrive in one piece [1].

When it arrives, your own gut bugs go to work. Bifidobacterium especially. They take those anthocyanins apart and turn them into short-chain fatty acids and small phenolic compounds [4]. Those short-chain fatty acids are what talk to the L-cells in your gut lining, the same cells that run your body's own GLP-1 signaling [4]. Elderberry does not contain GLP-1. It feeds the system that makes your own. That is the whole point. And it is worth saying that when the Washington State University team studied elderberry and saw the gut microbiome shift, fat oxidation climb, and glucose handling improve, they used elderberry juice [2]. Juice is the form the good data is sitting on.

So how you deliver it is not a small detail. A concentrated dry capsule and an acidified juice do not act the same once they hit your gut. So far, every time somebody lines up whole food against an isolated extract, the whole food comes out ahead [3]. There are not a lot of head-to-head studies yet, so I am not going to oversell it, but that is the way it keeps landing. A juice that is already acidified shows up in friendly shape. Low pH is exactly where anthocyanins are happiest, so more of them survive the trip and reach the colon intact, armor and all. A dry capsule has to dissolve, rehydrate, and tough out that alkaline run on its own, with no acid and no food around it to carry it through. Same berry on the label. Two completely different rides through your body.

This is why you never want to isolate one thing out and call it the answer. Plants work as a team. You would not send your eleven-man football squad onto the field, hand the ball to the tight end, and tell the other ten to sit down. He is not getting to the end zone by himself. He needs the line blocking and the backs running and everybody doing their job at the same time. Elderberry is the same way.

We evolved eating food. And the plants we eat evolved to defend themselves. So when we eat the plant, we are eating the very compounds it built to protect itself. Those compounds are sister molecules. Some of them mirror each other. Some of them work together. Some land on the same receptors, some land on different ones, and some of them flat out need each other just to become usable in your body at all. Pull one out of that lineup and you have got a tight end standing alone on the field wondering where his team went. Keep them together and they cover for each other. That is what a whole-food preparation does that a powdered isolate cannot.

LIONBERRY REGENERATIVE™ HYDRATION is more than a hydration drink. It is more than a sports recovery drink. It is metabolic recovery. It is GLP-1 friendly, built and optimized for GLP-1. It is for after you got your butt kicked, or after whatever it was that the day took out of you.

Think about what we hand athletes and kids. Sports drinks and energy drinks loaded with artificial color, sweeteners, powdered isolates, and caffeine. LIONBERRY is the other direction entirely. Not an energy drink. No isolates. No dehydrated powders. Real fruit, pressed, grown out of the ground by farmers.

For LIONBERRY REGENERATIVE™ HYDRATION we start with a clear light base of elderflower tea, easy to drink, and we bring our elderberry to it. The anthocyanins are delicate. Long heat kills them. Dehydrating and spray drying kill them. So we engineer the pH first. We do not reduce it, we do not boil it, we do not cook it down into a syrup.

People brag about strange things. I have heard competitors boast that they never add a drop of water to their elderberry syrup. Good. I would hope not. Cooking elderberry down with honey and spices into a syrup is about as medicinal as making pancake syrup. The plant properties are gone. We do not make syrup.

Our second product is ELDERBERRY SIPS.

ELDERBERRY SIPS starts with fresh-pressed American elderberry juice. We additively bring in Concord grape for heart support and tart cherry for its melatonin and magnesium. Those are not afterthoughts. They earn their place. They also do something useful on the chemistry side. Together they pull the pH down to 3.7. That low pH protects the elderberry anthocyanins, and it does something else for us too. It shortens the pasteurization way down. About a minute at around 165°F. That is the whole window. And the acid is the reason. At 3.7 that short fast hold is exactly what our process authority signed off on. Quick heat, locked color, anthocyanins intact.

And yes, we use glass.

We hate hauling it. We are beasts of burden. It is heavy, it breaks, it is fragile, it costs a fortune to ship. Less-than-truckload freight is brutal. There are glass tariffs. But plastic leaches and aluminum cans are lined with plastic too, and healthy bodies deserve better than that.

Now here is the one way you can dry a berry without cooking the life out of it. Freeze drying. Freeze drying pulls the water out under vacuum at low temperature. No hot air. No reduction. No simmering it down. Done right it keeps the color, keeps the anthocyanins, keeps the heat-sensitive compounds that dehydration and spray drying murder [5][6]. For anything this rich in anthocyanins, freeze drying is the gold standard.

But done right is doing a lot of work in that sentence. You cannot just freeze dry juice and walk away. Two things have to be true.

First, you protect the anthocyanins with acid. They are most stable at low pH, so you bring the pH down and hold those purple compounds together through the whole process [8]. And not every acid is your friend here. Citric acid is. Ascorbic acid is not. Drop ascorbic acid into the water of the juice and it turns into hydrogen peroxide. Some people just call it bleaching, because that is what it looks like. It strips the color right out. And the color, again, is the medicine. So you use citric. You acidify first, then you dry.

Second, you carry it with acacia gum. Acacia gum, gum arabic, is a protective carrier. It shields the anthocyanins from oxygen, holds down moisture, and keeps the color and the chemistry steady in storage [5]. The powder ends up protected instead of sitting there naked and falling apart.

Citric acid to protect. Acacia gum to carry. Freeze dry, not spray dry, not dehydrate. That is the only way a powder ever earns its place near elderberry.

And that is where the work is headed next. Start with American elderberry juice. Bring in elderberry extract to push the anthocyanin content even higher while keeping that juice-derived profile. Protect it with citric acid. Carry it with acacia gum. Freeze dry the whole thing together. Juice plus extract, both freeze dried, the most good packed into the smallest honest package. Not whole seeded berry powder. Not a cooked-down reduction. The juice work, kept intact, in a form you can carry in your pocket.

When elderberry does not work, it is almost never the plant's fault. It got overheated in dehydration. It got cooked down into a syrup. It got powdered and shipped in from overseas. It got handled until there was nothing left to handle. The reputation that elderberry only kind of works is a processing problem, not a plant problem.

Quality matters. Results matter. Temperature, water activity, and pH matter. And the color matters most of all, because the color is the proof that the medicine is still in there.

We want elderberry's reputation higher than it is. We want better results. We want people honestly impressed, because it actually worked.

Do elderberry right.

References

[1] Lee J, Finn CE. Anthocyanins and Other Polyphenolics in American Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) and European Elderberry (Sambucus nigra). USDA Agricultural Research Service. https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/1718/pdf/2007/anthocyaninsandotherpolyphenolicsinamericanelder.pdf

[2] Solverson et al. Nutrients. 2024. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11510622/

[3] Kumkum R, Aston-Mourney K, McNeill BA, Hernández D, Rivera LR. Bioavailability of Anthocyanins: Whole Foods versus Extracts. Nutrients. 2024. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11123854/

[4] A Review of Factors Affecting Anthocyanin Bioavailability: Possible Implications for the Inter-Individual Variability. Nutrients. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7023094/

[5] Baeza et al. Food Science and Technology International. 2021. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32659122/

[6] Brønnum-Hansen & Flink. International Journal of Food Science and Technology. 1985.

[7] Anthocyanin Content and Storage Stability Studies. https://repositorio.uca.edu.ar/bitstream/123456789/13862/1/anthocyanin-content-storage-stability.pdf

[8] Kaack K. Processing of Anthocyanin Colourant from Elderberry Using Citric Acid. https://dcapub.au.dk/pub/planteavl_94_423.pdf

[9] Cyanogenic Glycoside Analysis in American Elderberry. Molecules. 2021. (No quantifiable cyanogenic glycosides found in commercial American elderberry juice.) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7961730/

[10] Senica M, et al. Processed elderberry (Sambucus nigra L.) products: A beneficial or harmful food alternative? (Heat processing reduced cyanogenic glycosides up to 96%.) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002364381630247X

[11] Elderberry for Prevention and Treatment of Viral Respiratory Illnesses: A Systematic Review. (Antiviral action via anthocyanins binding viral glycoproteins; modulation of inflammatory cytokines.) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8026097/

[12] Protocatechuic acid, the major metabolite of cyanidin-3-glucoside: blood-brain barrier permeability and anti-inflammatory, neuroprotective activity. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5504963/ and https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11478363/