A Sour Fruit Known For Its Sleep Benefits Can Also Slow Down Aging

Explorers still haven't found the fountain of youth. But you may be able to fight off aging — and stop losing sleep over every laugh line — with a particularly tart fruit.

Lemons? Limes? Nope. The pro-bedtime fruit that's good for your skin and destined to make your lips pucker is the sour cherry.

The sour cherry shouldn't be confused with its sibling, the sweet cherry. Sour cherries tend to be a little smaller than sweet cherries, and they're rarely eaten fresh by the handful due to their tartness. Instead, they're often dried to be used as toppings, added fresh into sweetened baked goods, or turned into other products, such as tart cherry juice.

In fact, tart cherry juice has become more available in stores, partly because it's been broadly heralded for being a natural sleep aid. The reason is that tart cherries contain melatonin and tryptophan, both of which are associated with sleepiness. (Here's why tryptophan makes you feel tired.) And while sour cherries only have a modest amount of melatonin and tryptophan, it's enough to make a difference.

A 2023 review in Current Sleep Medicine Reports notes that approximately 100 grams of fresh tart cherries offer about 0.135 micrograms of melatonin and 9 grams of tryptophan. Though the amounts are well below the suggested dosage for each substance for sleep improvement, according to the review, they appear to be enough to be effective.

Melatonin and tryptophan aren't the only nutrients in pure sour cherry juice that allow you to get better quality zzzs. As registered dietitian Beth Czerwony notes in a Cleveland Clinic article, the enzymes in sour cherries give the fruit even greater sleep-promoting capabilities. Czerwony explains that tart cherries "keep tryptophan in the body longer," allowing the tryptophan to help you get to sleep faster and remain asleep for longer than you otherwise might.

Consuming tart cherry juice seems to be an effective therapy for people with insomnia, not just those who want to minimize the nights they count sheep or sleep fitfully, or who have tried all the tricks to fall asleep without success.

A 2018 study in the American Journal of Therapeutics explored the effects of drinking tart cherry juice twice daily for two weeks on subjects aged 50+ with insomnia. The study found evidence to support tart cherry juice as a way to improve overall sleep quality and duration. Interestingly, the study also mentioned that tart cherry juice boosted the bioavailability of tryptophan.

While this is exciting news if you've been living with sleep deficiency for far too long, it's not the only reason to embrace sour cherries and their byproducts. Another excuse to add sour cherries to your diet is that they could keep your skin from looking older than your biological age.

How do sour cherries affect the skin? A 2017 review in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition highlighted two capabilities of tart cherries that play a role in anti-aging: reducing inflammation and minimizing oxidative stress.

As a 2018 paper from Clinical Interventions in Aging concluded, when the body experiences less oxidative stress and inflammation, it incurs less damage. This leaves the skin healthier, ultimately projecting youthfulness thanks to a constant influx of antioxidants. And tart cherries have plenty of antioxidants, including anti-inflammatory phenolic compounds.

Without a doubt, you have a lot to like about tart cherries. That said, they are still a source of sugar. For every 100 grams of tart cherries you eat, you'll take in more than 8 grams of sugar. Even though it's a naturally occurring sugar, it's what the World Health Organization considers free sugar, so it should be limited. Consequently, if you're trying to keep your intake within the recommended daily sugar limits of 25 grams for women or 36 grams for men, you may need to offset eating tart cherries or drinking tart cherry juice with foods that aren't as sweet.