Benefits
Exercise recovery
Two small randomized double-blind trials tested this 480 mg powder for 10 days around a hard session. After a half marathon in 27 trained runners and triathletes (11 on cherry, 16 on placebo), the cherry group showed smaller rises than placebo in creatinine, blood urea nitrogen and cortisol, with total protein close behind but not statistically separated (p = 0.081). After ten sets of ten back squats in 23 resistance-trained men (11 on cherry, 12 on placebo), the cherry group reported lower vastus lateralis soreness at 24 hours and smaller rises in creatinine and total protein. Creatine kinase, the usual marker of muscle damage, did not differ from placebo in either trial, and measured strength recovery did not differ either: in the squat trial the group by time effect on isokinetic work was p = 0.75. Both trials came from the same Texas A&M laboratory and were funded by the manufacturer, and in the running trial the cherry group already had 34 percent lower soreness before the race.
Uric acid, a blood marker
Uric acid is a blood measurement, not a joint symptom, and no trial of this powder has measured joint pain or function. Both trials of this powder did measure serum uric acid, and neither found any difference from placebo (group p = 0.79 in the half-marathon trial, p = 0.65 in the squat trial). Elsewhere the picture is mixed. In 48 adults randomized across juice and capsule formats, a single 480 mg powdered capsule lowered serum uric acid for up to 24 hours, about 8 percent on average, and the drop was not sustained with continued dosing. A 2026 meta-analysis of four randomized trials in 392 people found a modest pooled reduction with wide variation between studies. In 25 adults with raised uric acid, tart cherry powder taken with a high-purine meal and for a week afterwards did not change the uric acid response. In 50 people with diagnosed gout, 28 days of tart cherry concentrate at up to 30 ml twice daily changed neither serum urate, nor urate excretion, nor the number of flares.
Sleep: tested with the powder and not shown
The sleep evidence for tart cherry is about juice concentrate, not this capsule. Seven days of tart cherry juice concentrate raised urinary melatonin and increased total sleep time and sleep efficiency in a 20 person crossover trial. The powder has since been tested twice and did not reproduce it. In 34 adults with overweight or obesity and sleep complaints, 500 mg of Montmorency tart cherry capsules taken an hour before bed for 14 days changed nothing on device-measured sleep, on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index or on the Insomnia Severity Index. In a 44 person trial that ran juice and powdered capsules side by side for 30 days, neither arm improved sleep time or quality. No melatonin figure has ever been published for this powder, and a 480 mg capsule of dried cherry skin is a much smaller serving of fruit than a glass of concentrate.
Mechanism of action
Polyphenols and the inflammatory response
Cherry polyphenols are proposed to blunt the inflammatory and oxidative response to hard exercise. The evidence in this powder does not settle it: the endurance trial reported inflammatory markers about 47 percent lower than placebo over time, a difference that fell just short of significance (p = 0.053), while the resistance-exercise trial of the same powder at the same dose found no significant effect on any inflammatory or anti-inflammatory marker and no change in free-radical production, lipid peroxidation or antioxidant capacity.
Melatonin and uric acid
The cherry's small melatonin content is the proposed basis for the sleep claims made about juice concentrate, and it has not translated to the capsule powder in the two trials that tested it. Cherry polyphenols are proposed to lower uric acid production, but a 28 day randomized trial in people with gout found no change in serum urate and no change in urate excretion, so the clearance half of this mechanism is not supported in people.
Clinical trials
Randomized study of powdered Montmorency tart cherry supplementation on endurance exercise recovery. (Levers et al. 2016, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition; product CherryPURE supplied and study funded by Shoreline Fruit, LLC and Anderson Global Group, LLC through an unrestricted grant to Texas A&M University)
27 endurance-trained runners and triathletes, 18 men and 9 women, average age 22; 11 received tart cherry and 16 received a rice flour placebo.
Over 10 days of 480 mg/day around a half marathon, the cherry group showed smaller rises than placebo in creatinine (p = 0.047), blood urea nitrogen (p = 0.048) and cortisol (p = 0.016), inflammatory markers about 47 percent lower over time (p = 0.053), and faster average finish times. Creatine kinase, the standard muscle-damage marker, did not differ between groups (p = 0.63), and neither did serum uric acid (p = 0.79). Read the soreness and finish-time results with care: the cherry group started 34 percent lower on pre-race medial quadriceps soreness, the authors themselves used finish time as a statistical covariate for the other outcomes, and with 11 people in the cherry arm a difference this size is not a reliable estimate of the effect.