Tart cherry
A sour red cherry, sold for sleep and for recovery after hard exercise.
- Sleep
- Muscle soreness and recovery
- Uric acid
- Exercise performance
- Blood pressure
A plain-English overview, not advice. Written from published reviews and trials and from what people say in public forums.
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On this page
What is tart cherry?
Tart cherry is the sour cherry, Prunus cerasus, and Montmorency is the variety nearly all of the research has used. It is grown as an industrial fruit: the juice is pressed out, and reviewers describe the skin and flesh left behind as rich in phenolic compounds, with an oil in the stones. In Britain it is sold three ways, as juice, as a thick concentrate taken by the spoonful, and as dried cherry powder in capsules, and trials have used all three. People buy it above all for sleep and for the days after a hard session.
Why do people take tart cherry?
Sleep
The thinking. Sleep is what most people in Britain buy tart cherry for, usually as a glass of juice or a spoonful of concentrate in the evening. The idea rests on melatonin, the molecule that sets the sleep-wake cycle, which reviewers list among the compounds Montmorency cherries carry.
What research has found. Three small trials have measured it. Twenty adults drinking concentrate for a week spent longer in bed and longer asleep, and passed more melatonin in their urine; eight older adults with insomnia, watched overnight in a sleep laboratory, slept 84 minutes longer. A 30-day trial in 44 healthy adults, using juice and capsules, found no difference between the groups. Research here is still young: a few studies so far, mostly pointing the same way.
Muscle soreness and recovery
The thinking. Runners, cyclists and team-sport players take it around hard sessions, most often as concentrate for a few days either side. The idea is that the fruit’s polyphenols damp down the inflammation and oxidative stress a punishing bout sets off, so soreness and lost strength pass sooner.
What research has found. Two pooled reviews and five trials have measured it. A review of 14 studies found a small reduction in soreness and moderate ones in strength and power recovery; a review of 19 trials found maximum strength recovering faster but no pooled effect on soreness, with wide variation between studies. Cyclists and men doing heavy squats reported less soreness; water polo players and professional footballers showed no difference. Studies here point in different directions, so this one is still being worked out; the dose, how long people took it and who took part all seem to matter.
Uric acid levels
The thinking. Gout is why a good many people pick tart cherry up, and uric acid is the part of it that gets measured: the trials ask whether a cherry drink or capsule shifts how much of it is in the blood. Researchers put the idea down to the fruit’s anthocyanins and other polyphenols.
What research has found. One pooled analysis has gathered that work together, four randomised trials, eight comparisons and 392 people between them. Uric acid came out modestly lower than on the comparison drink, though the trials varied a good deal, and the reviewers describe the evidence as limited in quantity and consistency. A fair body of trials has looked at this, and most point the same way.
Exercise performance
The thinking. A smaller group take it before an event rather than after, hoping to hold a pace for longer. Reviewers put the idea down to the same polyphenols, naming the fruit’s low glycaemic index, its antioxidant capacity and its effect on blood flow.
What research has found. A pooled analysis of ten trials found a small improvement in endurance performance when concentrate, as juice or powder, was taken anywhere from seven days to an hour and a half beforehand. Twenty-seven runners on powdered capsules for ten days finished a half marathon 13 per cent faster. In ten cyclists a single dose left time to exhaustion unchanged, though power over a closing sprint was a tenth higher. Only a few studies have measured this so far, though they mostly agree.
Blood pressure
The thinking. A smaller group again drink the juice with the heart in mind. Tart cherry is a polyphenol-rich food as much as a supplement, and blood pressure is what tends to get measured when it is studied that way.
What research has found. Six trials have measured it. Single 60 ml doses of concentrate lowered the upper figure for about three hours in men with early high blood pressure, and a week of juice lowered 24-hour blood pressure in twelve adults with metabolic syndrome. Six weeks in 47 healthy adults and three months in 50 middle-aged adults left blood pressure and arterial stiffness no different, and a pooled analysis of 21 trials found no change in blood pressure or heart rate. The studies disagree, so this is unsettled: dose, duration and who took part all seem to shift the result.
What does tart cherry do in the body?
Tart cherry is not a nutrient, and the body has no job waiting for it. What it brings is polyphenols. Reviews put the cyanidins first among them, with quercetin and kaempferol alongside, two chlorogenic acids, a coumaroylquinic acid and melatonin, and describe the group as antioxidant and anti-inflammatory.
Those compounds are described as acting on the signalling pathways that call inflammatory cells in, which is where both the recovery idea and the uric acid idea begin. Melatonin is the odd one out, and the reason the fruit turns up at bedtime: it is the molecule that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. One trial followed a second route to the same place, finding that a cherry procyanidin slowed the enzyme which breaks tryptophan down, leaving more of that amino acid available. How much of any of this a given product carries is the open question, because reviewers have found the polyphenol content of supplements poorly measured and widely variable.
What do people say about taking tart cherry?
These are anecdotes people have shared, not evidence.
What people like
- Four of these five threads sit in one British parenting forum and the fifth in a mountain biking forum, so the balance reflects those two crowds.
- Gout is the commonest reason by some way, named in three of the threads, with a few saying attacks became rare or stopped while they kept it up.
- Most of those describe taking it alongside prescribed tablets rather than instead of them, one reporting a single mild attack since, another a year without one.
- Sleep is the next commonest reason: a few drink the juice in the evening, one pairing it with magnesium, and describe it as having helped a bit.
- A couple eat dried or frozen cherries daily rather than buy anything, one describing sore finger joints easing within days of starting.
Common complaints
- Cost is the commonest complaint: the juice is called pricey in two threads, one poster singling out the organic version as dear.
- Several noticed nothing: one took it for months after rides and found no difference from an ordinary carbohydrate drink, two others suspected routine or expectation.
- Two posters spent months unable to find the juice on supermarket shelves, and one warns that much of what is sold is mostly apple juice.
- Nobody in the five threads described a side effect of any kind, although nobody in them was asked about side effects either.
How people take it
- Amounts are rarely given: only one poster names one, taking double the label amount for the first couple of days of a flare-up.
- A daily glass of juice, or a spoonful of concentrate in water, is the routine described most, taken in the evening by those after sleep.
- Capsules and tablets are the alternative for people who would rather not drink anything, and are described as kept up for months on end.
- Most take it alongside something else: prescribed tablets for gout, magnesium at bedtime, or stirred into kefir or a yoghurt and granola breakfast.
- Dried or frozen cherries eaten with breakfast are the cheaper route a couple of people use instead of buying a supplement at all.
Read from these public discussions:
- Cherries/dried cherries. Anti-inflammatory. (Mumsnet, 2023)
- Gout. Miracles wanted to reduce the pain (Mumsnet, 2023)
- Where has the cherry juice gone ? (Mumsnet, 2022)
- Please help - severe insomnia and scared (Mumsnet, 2024)
- Tart cherry juice (Mountain biking forum, 2023)
What forms of tart cherry are there?
| Form | What’s different | Per serving, on products we list |
|---|---|---|
| Tart cherry (capsules & powder) | Cherry flesh and juice, dried to a powder and sold loose or pressed into capsules. | 450 mg |
What else is worth knowing about tart cherry?
- Trials used two quite different things, and they are not interchangeable: 30 ml of concentrate twice a day, or 240 to 480 ml of juice, against 480 mg of powdered cherry in the capsule trials. Labels give the amount per serving, which may be more than one capsule.
- Across 43 supplement studies, reviewers found daily polyphenol doses ranging from 143 mg to 2,140 mg, and six studies that never reported what their product contained. The weight of powder on a label does not say how much of the cherry’s polyphenols it carries.
- Three months of concentrate in 50 middle-aged adults was reported as safe and well tolerated. In a 12-week trial in adults aged 65 to 80 drinking 480 ml of juice daily, cholesterol came out lower than in the control group and glucose, triglycerides and body mass index higher; the control drink was matched for energy and sugar.
- Who took part is worth knowing: the recovery and performance trials were in trained athletes, mostly young men, and the sleep trials ran from 8 to 44 people. Reviewers of the exercise work suggest saving it for stretches when recovery matters most rather than taking it right through a training block.
If you take medication, are pregnant, or have a health condition, check with a pharmacist or GP first.
The research behind this page (26 studies)
- Montmorency tart cherry supplementation does not impact sleep, body composition, cellular health, or blood pressure in healthy adults. (2026, randomised trial)
- Pilot Study of the Tart Cherry Juice for the Treatment of Insomnia and Investigation of Mechanisms. (2018, randomised trial)
- Effect of tart cherry juice (Prunus cerasus) on melatonin levels and enhanced sleep quality. (2012, randomised trial)
- Effects of Tart Cherry Juice Supplementation on Recovery from Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage in Athletes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. (2026, systematic review)
- Tart Cherry Supplementation and Recovery From Strenuous Exercise: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. (2021, meta-analysis)
- Tart Cherry Juice: No Effect on Muscle Function Loss or Muscle Soreness in Professional Soccer Players After a Match. (2020, randomised trial)
- The Effects of Montmorency Tart Cherry Concentrate Supplementation on Recovery Following Prolonged, Intermittent Exercise. (2016, randomised trial)
- Effect of tart cherry juice on recovery and next day performance in well-trained Water Polo players. (2016, randomised trial)
- Recovery facilitation with Montmorency cherries following high-intensity, metabolically challenging exercise. (2015, randomised trial)
- Effects of powdered Montmorency tart cherry supplementation on an acute bout of intense lower body strength exercise in resistance trained males. (2015, randomised trial)
- Tart cherry intake and serum uric acid: Meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and evidence from network pharmacology. (2026, meta-analysis)
- Effect of Tart Cherry Concentrate on Endurance Exercise Performance: A Meta-analysis. (2020, meta-analysis)
- Effects of montmorency tart cherry (L. Prunus Cerasus) consumption on nitric oxide biomarkers and exercise performance. (2018, randomised trial)
- Effects of powdered Montmorency tart cherry supplementation on acute endurance exercise performance in aerobically trained individuals. (2016, randomised trial)
- Effects of short-term continuous Montmorency tart cherry juice supplementation in participants with metabolic syndrome. (2021, randomised trial)
- The Influence of Tart Cherry ( Prunus cerasus, cv Montmorency) Concentrate Supplementation for 3 Months on Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in Middle-Aged Adults: A Randomised, Placebo-Controlled Trial. (2021, randomised trial)
- Effects of Montmorency Tart Cherry Juice Consumption on Cardiometabolic Biomarkers in Adults with Metabolic Syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial. (2020, randomised trial)
- Effects of Montmorency tart cherry (Prunus Cerasus L.) consumption on vascular function in men with early hypertension. (2016, randomised trial)
- Montmorency Tart cherries (Prunus cerasus L.) modulate vascular function acutely, in the absence of improvement in cognitive performance. (2016, randomised trial)
- Effect of a tart cherry juice supplement on arterial stiffness and inflammation in healthy adults: a randomised controlled trial. (2014, randomised trial)
- Sour Cherry By-products: Compositions, Functional Properties and Recovery Potentials - A Review. (2019, review)
- Tart Cherry Juice in Athletes: A Literature Review and Commentary. (2017, review)
- Review of Analytical Methods and Reporting of the Polyphenol Content of Tart Cherry Supplements in Human Supplementation Studies Investigating Health and Exercise Performance Effects: Recommendations for Good Practice. (2021, review)
- Effects of tart cherry and its metabolites on aging and inflammatory conditions: Efficacy and possible mechanisms. (2021, review)
- Dose-dependent effect of tart cherry on blood pressure and selected inflammation biomarkers: A GRADE-assessed systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. (2023, review)
- Tart cherry supplementation for exercise recovery: an evidence-informed narrative review and applied monitoring framework. (2026, other)
How much does tart cherry cost?
That depends on the form and the pack, so we work out the price of the same dose of every tart cherry product we can find and rank them.