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

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/

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Past Business Weekly's:

The Dark Berry

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

BS Weekly #13

The color is not a coincidence.

The dark, almost-black purple of elderberry is not just a visual marker of ripeness. It is a signal of bioactive density. The anthocyanin molecule responsible for that color… cyanidin-3-glucoside, or C3G… is pH-responsive, meaning its molecular structure physically shifts depending on the acidity of its environment [12]. In acidic conditions it appears red. At neutral pH it goes purple. In alkaline conditions it shifts toward blue and eventually breaks down entirely [12]. This is not a cosmetic property. It is a window into the molecule’s chemistry. The same pH sensitivity that makes the color shift is what makes C3G reactive inside your digestive system… and reactive in exactly the right way, because your stomach is acidic, and acid stabilizes the molecule right when it needs to survive [14].

What C3G Actually Is

Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside… abbreviated C3G… is an anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are water-soluble plant pigments in the flavonoid family responsible for the red, purple, and blue colors of dark berries. Elderberry is one of the densest sources of anthocyanins in the known food supply.

C3G is specifically a cyanidin molecule with a glucose molecule attached at the 3-position of its carbon ring. That structure matters for how it moves through your body and how it interacts with your gut. C3G is not a GLP-1 agonist. It does not bind to the GLP-1 receptor the way tirzepatide, Mounjaro, or Zepbound do. What it does is different and arguably more interesting… it stimulates your intestinal L cells to make more of your own GLP-1 from the inside [1]. The drug mimics the hormone from the outside. Elderberry… because it is food, because it is a berry, because it moves through your gut the way food does… triggers your body to produce the hormone itself. That is not a drug mechanism. That is food doing what food has always done. We just finally have the tools to watch it happen.

Research published in npj Science of Food confirmed that C3G treatment increased GLP-1 secretion in intestinal L cells via the PPARβ/δ… β-catenin… TCF-4 signaling pathway, which enhances the transcription of the proglucagon precursor that L cells use to synthesize GLP-1 [1]. C3G stimulates GLP-1 secretion from intestinal L cells via this pathway, thereby enhancing insulin secretion and improving glycemic control [1].

What the L Cell Is and What GLP-1 Does to Your Body

The L cell is a specialized enteroendocrine cell lining the wall of the intestine, concentrated in the ileum and colon. Its job is to sense what is coming through the gut… nutrients, fiber, certain plant compounds including C3G… and release hormonal signals in response [2]. GLP-1 is produced in intestinal L cells through posttranslational processing of the proglucagon gene and is released from the gut in response to nutrient ingestion [3].

Once C3G triggers the L cell and GLP-1 is secreted into circulation, it does multiple things simultaneously throughout the body that are directly relevant to blood sugar, metabolic health, and fat metabolism:

It tells the pancreas to release insulin in a glucose-dependent manner… meaning only when blood sugar is actually elevated, which is why it does not cause the hypoglycemic crashes that some diabetes medications do [3].

It blocks glucagon… the hormone that raises blood sugar… from being secreted by the pancreas, which further stabilizes blood glucose levels after meals [3].

It slows gastric emptying… food moves more slowly from the stomach into the small intestine… which flattens the blood sugar curve after eating, reduces postprandial glucose spikes, and extends the feeling of satiety [4].

It acts on GLP-1 receptors in the brainstem and hypothalamus to promote fullness and reduce appetite… GLP-1 has been shown to promote satiety and reduce both food and water intake [4].

It directly supports fat oxidation… the WSU clinical trial documented a 27% increase in fat oxidation at rest and during exercise in participants consuming elderberry juice for one week, consistent with the metabolic effects of increased endogenous GLP-1 activity [17].

The half-life of endogenous GLP-1 in circulation is approximately two minutes before it is degraded by the enzyme DPP-4 [4]. This is why pharmaceutical GLP-1 agonists are engineered to be DPP-4 resistant… they stay in the system far longer than your body’s own version. Elderberry does not extend the half-life. What it does is increase the rate of production… more signal from more L cells, more often, through food.

Is C3G Found More in American Elderberry

Both American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) and European elderberry (Sambucus nigra) contain C3G. A USDA study comparing both species grown side by side found that both produce cyanidin-based anthocyanins as their dominant pigments, but with meaningfully different profiles [6]. In European elderberry, C3G makes up roughly 40 to 50% of total anthocyanins. In American elderberry, the dominant anthocyanins are acylated forms… meaning the cyanidin molecule has an additional organic acid group attached… making up approximately 65 to 70% of total anthocyanins, with C3G present but not dominant [15].

What matters for the L cell is not which species has the highest percentage of C3G on paper. What matters is how much active cyanidin-based compound arrives at the L cell intact after surviving processing, storage, and the journey through your gut. Acylated anthocyanins from American elderberry were more stable than cyanidin 3-sambubioside from European elderberry, with acylation improving both heat and light stability [6]. American elderberry’s acylated forms survive the journey better… and they break down in the gut into the same cyanidin-based compounds that stimulate L cell GLP-1 production [1].

Total anthocyanin content in American elderberry cultivars ranges from 85 to 385 mg per 100 grams depending on cultivar and growing conditions [7]. That nearly fourfold range is not a minor variation. It is the difference between a berry that moves the needle on L cell stimulation and one that does not. The Wyldewood and Bob Gordon cultivars are among the highest-anthocyanin American elderberry cultivars documented in the literature [16].

How C3G Gets to the L Cell

C3G faces a gauntlet between the berry and the L cell. Understanding that gauntlet explains why processing matters so much.

The stomach is actually C3G’s friend. The pH value of the stomach environment is generally 0.9 to 1.5. Anthocyanins are relatively stable at pH 2 or below and can be rapidly absorbed in the stomach, appearing in plasma within 30 minutes after ingestion. The acidity that protects the molecule in a well-processed elderberry product continues protecting it in the stomach. Some C3G absorbs directly through the stomach wall into circulation [9].

The challenge comes in the small intestine. Anthocyanins are destabilized by the neutral to slightly alkaline pH of the small intestine. As C3G moves from the acidic stomach into the small intestine the pH rises, the molecule becomes less stable, and some degrades. What survives is absorbed via the SGLT1 and GLUT2 glucose transporters in the intestinal wall [9]. Exposure to intestinal conditions leads to a decrease in C3G bioavailability by 40 to 50% overall [10].

What does not get absorbed intact continues to the colon where Bifidobacterium metabolizes it. Those metabolites stimulate L cells to produce more GLP-1 through the SCFA pathway… a second route to the same destination [11]. Two pathways. One berry. Both landing on the L cell.

How to Process Elderberry to Preserve C3G for the L Cell

This is where most of the commercial elderberry industry gets it wrong and most consumers have no way of knowing.

C3G is destroyed by heat, oxidation, light, and time. Heating elderberry at temperatures ranging from 212 to 302°F causes significant structural changes in anthocyanins, degrading both the bioactive compounds and their antioxidant activity [8]. Extended heat processing does not sterilize the medicine… it eliminates it.

Elderberry, with its softer peel structure, is more prone to anthocyanin degradation by heat than other berry fruits [8]. A blueberry or a grape can withstand certain processing conditions that will simply destroy elderberry anthocyanins.

What preserves C3G so it can actually reach the L cell:

  • Fresh pressing or cold pressing to juice immediately after harvest
  • Dropping the pH of the finished product acidifies the environment and stabilizes the C3G molecule structurally… the color shift from purple toward red confirms it is working [12]
  • Flash pasteurization at the lowest temperature and shortest time that achieves food safety requirements rather than extended boiling
  • Cold storage to minimize oxidative degradation
  • Processing as close to harvest as possible… anthocyanins degrade in the berry after picking even without heat

The color of the finished product tells you most of what you need to know. A deeply purple, almost black elderberry juice has retained its anthocyanins. A pale, brownish, or dull product has not. The color is not the brand. The color is the medicine. Trust the color.

METABOLIC RECOVERY

It starts with the dark berry.

Everything else follows from here.

Bevin Brooks

Business Secrets Weekly drops every Sunday at www.lionberry.us

References

[1] Xu, Y. et al. (2025). Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside enhances GLP-1 secretion via PPARβ/δ-β-catenin-TCF-4 pathway in type 2 diabetes mellitus. npj Science of Food, 9, 47. DOI: 10.1038/s41538-025-00445-4

[2] Habib, A.M. et al. (2021). What is an L-cell and how do we study the secretory mechanisms of the L-cell? Frontiers in Endocrinology, 12, 624009. DOI: 10.3389/fendo.2021.624009

[3] Drucker, D.J. (2002). The multiple actions of GLP-1 on the process of glucose-stimulated insulin secretion. Diabetes, 51(S3), S434–S442. DOI: 10.2337/diabetes.51.2007.S434

[4] Holst, J.J. (2007). The physiology of glucagon-like peptide 1. Physiological Reviews, 87(4), 1409–1439. DOI: 10.1152/physrev.00034.2006

[5] Drucker, D.J. (2006). The biology of incretin hormones. Cell Metabolism, 3(3), 153–165. DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2006.01.004

[6] Lee, J. & Finn, C.E. (2007). Anthocyanins and other polyphenolics in American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) and European elderberry (Sambucus nigra) cultivars. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 87(14), 2665–2675. DOI: 10.1002/jsfa.3029

[7] Finn, C.E. et al. (2008). Fruit composition of elderberry (Sambucus spp.) genotypes grown in Oregon and Missouri, USA. HortScience, 43(5), 1501–1507. DOI: 10.21273/HORTSCI.43.5.1501

[8] Oancea, A.M. et al. (2018). The kinetics of thermal degradation of polyphenolic compounds from elderberry extract. Journal of Food Science and Technology, 55(2). DOI: 10.1177/1082013218756139

[9] Zou, T.B. et al. (2014). The role of sodium-dependent glucose transporter 1 and glucose transporter 2 in the absorption of cyanidin-3-O-β-glucoside. Nutrients, 6(10), 4165–4177. DOI: 10.3390/nu6104165

[10] Xu, Y. et al. (2023). Cyanidin-3-O-glucoside as a nutrigenomic factor in type 2 diabetes and its prominent impact on health. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 24(10), 8875. DOI: 10.3390/ijms24108875

[11] Tolhurst, G. et al. (2012). Short-chain fatty acids stimulate glucagon-like peptide-1 secretion via the G-protein-coupled receptor FFAR2. Diabetes, 61(2), 364–371. DOI: 10.2337/db11-1019

[12] Khoo, H.E. et al. (2017). Anthocyanidins and anthocyanins: colored pigments as food, pharmaceutical ingredients, and the potential health benefits. Food & Nutrition Research, 61(1), 1361779. DOI: 10.1080/16546628.2017.1361779

[13] Chen, Z. et al. (2023). Preparation of an elderberry anthocyanin film and fresh-keeping effect of its application on fresh shrimps. PLOS ONE, 18(11), e0290650. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290650

[14] Liang, M. et al. (2023). Factors affecting the stability of anthocyanins and strategies for improving their stability. Food Chemistry: X, 20, 100867. DOI: 10.1016/j.fochx.2023.100867

[15] Kuhnau, J. (1976). The flavonoids: a class of semi-essential food components. World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics, 24, 117–191.

[16] Thomas, A.L. et al. (2015). Comparison of fruit characteristics among diverse elderberry genotypes grown in Missouri and Oregon. Journal of the American Pomological Society, 69(1), 2–14.

[17] Solverson, P. et al. (2024). A one-week elderberry juice intervention augments the fecal microbiota and suggests improvement in glucose tolerance and fat oxidation in a randomized controlled trial. Nutrients, 16(20), 3555. DOI: 10.3390/nu16203555