Antioxidant Benefits & Dangers

Antioxidant Benefits & Dangers

What is this hubbub about antioxidants? Many people don’t realize this, but the insides of our bodies are like metal swing sets left outside – they are at the mercy of nature’s elements. We can see that if the swing set is not properly painted, it will rust. And if left uncared for, the swing set will eventually rust away. Rusting is nature’s way of using oxygen to break down metal and return metal to the ground.

Antioxidant Dangers – Oxidation

Another name for rusting is oxidation. Oxidation is nature’s way of using oxygen to rust out the insides of our bodies. And like the metal swing set, oxidation is nature’s way of breaking down the human body for its return to the ground. Like rusting, oxidation takes its time and toll. It also leaves tell-tale signs like aches and pains, arthritis, dry or patchy skin, acne & rashes, diabetes, heart problems, clogged arteries, heart burn that antacids won’t relieve and won’t take a vacation, high cholesterol, cancer, stroke, and death. Do these consequences of old age qualify for some hubbub?

Antioxidant Benefits.

It certainly did for our ancestors who searched for foods that seemed to forestall these consequences. They were the first seekers of what we now know as antioxidant fruit and vegetables – like mangosteen fruit, red grapes, broccoli and cabbage, among others. In theory, antioxidants from antioxidant fruit and vegetables help our bodies fight oxidation. At first, we relied on single supplements like vitamin E, C, or B tablets taken separately. Then we graduated to super supplements like the multivitamin tablets or even liquids. These, it turns out, are not doing the job for some.

Raising the Ante Against Oxidation.

Some are craving the strength of super supplements of antioxidant fruit. Super supplements of acai berry, mangosteen fruit, green tea, resveratrol. Many super supplements now combine these major-league fruits to get a combo antioxidant power of antioxidant fruit. The stakes are high – antioxidant fruit has been pitted against the free radicals of oxidation. Super supplements house these alliances and are taken daily to fend off the ravages of aging in hopes of prolonging a quality life.

Tags: antioxidant fruit, super supplements, antioxidant benefits

Categories: Oxidation, Fight oxidation, antioxidant fruit and vegetables, high stakes antioxidants

Body Cleanse Program

Body Cleanse Program

Before I read Rodale Health Books’ The Purification Plan, I thought a body cleansing program would entail the regime doctors put patients through the day before a colonoscopy. However, body detoxification involves more than just cleaning the colon. It includes the whole body. A body cleanse program includes three stages: absorbing the nutrients, neutralizing free radicals (toxins), and ushering toxins from the body. Absorbing nutrients is so important because a neglected colon’s inner wall can become so encrusted with old waste that the colon has difficulty in doing its digestive role

Step one of a body cleanse program includes picking foods that are effective in cleansing the body, especially the liver, kidneys, and colon. Some top foods include garlic, lemons, green tea, watercress, cabbage, vinegar, whole psyllium husks, and broccoli sprouts. These foods are sometimes in a top ten listing. Milk Thistle can be used to protect the liver from pollutants like solvents, fertilizer, paint and the like. Use the elder flower to stimulate sweating as a way to push toxins from the body. Finally, dandelion root can jump start a sluggish digestion. Common foods and specialty ones all have a place in a good body cleanse program.

Step two of the body cleanse program is to focus on helping the body fight the free radicals that toxins introduce into the body. There are a couple of points to remember here. Don’t go for the jugular and try to undo years of build up and damage over a weekend. Make your body cleanse program a change in your lifestyle. Be patient. Introduce a body cleansing food that is death on oxidants (free radicals), at a measured pace – like one new one per week. This will give the body a chance to adjust without embarrassing body reactions. Finally, drink antioxidant fruit juices rather than a soda or coffee. Antioxidant fruit in juice form are especially easy for the body to absorb as I explained in my earlier blog, “Vitamin Absorption.”

Step three of a body cleanse program is the elimination of toxins. Ideally, toxins would be neutralized in the digestive, circulatory cycles. Better choices of foods in a body cleanse program would lower the toxins in the body to eliminate. However, not all toxins will be neutralized. Some need to be eliminated via the colon and kidneys, while others may be passed through sweat glands. It is best for a body cleanse program to work with the body’s liver, kidneys, sweat glands, and immune system to kick the toxins from the body. Some cleansing kits not only remove toxins, but also remove friendly bacteria and flora as well. Many may think first of colonic cleansing – as in flushing a toxic colon. Colonic flushing in a body cleanse program belongs in the hands of a professional.

Tags: body cleanse, body cleanse program, antioxidant fruit

Categories: body cleanse program, picking foods, effective in cleansing the body, fight the free radicals, toxins neutralized, cleansing kits.

Life Expectancy Rate

Life expectancy rate

Top internet stories of life expectancy rates center around survival rates from country to country. One of the highest in the world is among Jews, both in North America and Israel. Israel’s men are said to have the second highest life expectancy rate, behind males in Japan. One reason given for Israeli men’s high survival rate is their general satisfaction with their life in old age. Life expectancy rate in the US has reached a record high of 78.1 years of age for a child born in 2006. Dr Mehmet Oz claimed in the famous Oprah interview that it is quite possible for people to live to 125. People can extend their life expectancy by 20 years if they eat real food in moderation and exercise.

The longevity diet.

Dr Oz also advised Oprah’s audience that people can extend their lives more by eating less to activate the sirtuin-age-slowing gene. Dr. Sinclair is among the anti aging doctors and has done foundational research to support Dr. Oz’ advice. Drs. Oz and Sinclair both knew of a longevity diet proven in research: great calorie restriction activates the otherwise dormant gene in the body to call the body’s defenses and healing faculties to fend off age-related diseases like arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, fibromyalgia, and even cancer. What Dr Sinclair found is that the component resveratrol from red wine can induce the body to mimic the effects of calorie restriction. Thus, in animals, this change in the longevity diet allows rats and monkeys to eat heartily, gain weight, but still not suffer the disease of seniors.

Controversy Over Resveratrol’s Effectiveness

There is some controversy over the exclusive effectiveness of resveratrol on humans. Some claim that resveratrol does not remain potent after digestion. Others disagree. Still others figure that resveratrol cannot be separated from the influence of any other antioxidant fruit. A study published in the journal Molecular Nutrition & Food Research (ISSN 1613-4125) concludes, that their study “raises some doubts about the health effects of dietary resveratrol consumption and suggests that the benefits associated to red wine consumption could be probably due to the whole antioxidant pool present in red wine.”

It is the power of antioxidant fruit, especially in a liquid supplement form, that enhances vitamin absorption along with other minerals and nutrients. Antioxidant fruit feeds the body at the necessary cellular level so that the body can call up its defenses against age related diseases. The longevity diet needs a chorus of antioxidant fruit to have its full impact. It is then that the longevity diet can feed the body in its quest to extend its life expectancy rate.

Tags: life expectancy rate, longevity diet, resveratrol, antioxidant fruit.

Categories: Resveratrol’s Effectiveness, longevity diet, life expectancy rate, antioxidant fruit, liquid vitamins, vitamin absorption

Vemma Nutrition

The Vemma Nutrition Company is a private, family-run business that has two basic products to sell: Vemma Nutrition drink and Verve – the energy drink.

Vemma Nutrition Up Close

The Vemma Nutrition Program sells two super supplements to help people get the needed nutrition, perhaps lacking in their daily meals. The first product, Vemma, is a super juice made from an antioxidant fruit with the third highest antioxidant rating (ORAC value). It is combined with antioxidant gusher green tea, aloe vera (rich in Glyconutrient), trace vitamins, and minerals. The Vemma Nutrition offered with this combination is the equivalent to eating 2 oranges , 9 avocados,19 bananas, 2 large watermelons, 17 oz of cherries, 3 stalks of broccoli, 1 cup of spinach, 3 cups of peas, 5 large potatoes, 61 cups of tomatoes, 37 medium mushrooms, 62 oz of cheddar cheese (for vitamin B-12), and 55 eggs (for Vitamin D). Mind you, all these equivalent nutrients are condensed into a 2 oz liquid serving. So it has vitamin absorption like other liquid vitamins.

Verve

The second super supplement of the Vemma Nutrition Program is its energy drink Verve. Verve comes primarily in an 8z can. Verve contains all the nutrients of Vemma super juice, but it has an added energy kick as well. It has 80 mg of caffeine (about the same as a cup of coffee). It also includes Taurine, Inositol, and choline chloride for energy boosts.

Criticisms of Vemma

Vemma Nutrition has its drawbacks. Not everyone is sold on the need for super supplements. And many are uncomfortable that there is no FDA approval or endorsement of any of the online products from antioxidant fruits like Vemma, Mona Vie, Xanou, and ResVPure. Some people, doctors included, are convinced that people can and should eat healthy foods they buy or grow. They discourage using super supplements and see them as a waste of money. Still, more critics see these supplements as a waste of time. They say even if the products work (marginally, I guess in their minds), the products would require spending more time than they wish on the internet. In addition, these super supplements tend to be pricey. Finally, the greatest complaint is potential users' having GREAT difficulty in finding someone else who has enough interest in trying super supplements or getting involved in a home-based-business.

Final Words

Despite the criticism of Vemma Nutrition, I think the potential for all of the antioxidant fruit products listed above is there. I ran across an Answerbag posting awhile ago. The question was whether Vemma worked in helping people get healthy again. The responses were varied, and opinions from both ends of the spectrum were represented. Three things struck me. Those writing against did not oppose because they had tried Vemma Nutrition and it failed. They disagreed based on an a priori principle. Those favoring saw the super supplement as effective in their lives. In other words, they had tried the product, and it had worked for them. Finally, those who wrote positively for Vemma and Xanou were very passionate about their beliefs.

It was the passion and conviction of those who tried the antioxidant fruit products that convinced me that these people saw some effect in their lives.

Tags: Vemma Nutrition, antioxidant fruit, super supplements

Categories: Vemma Nutrition Company, Vemma Nutrition Products, Vemma Training, Criticisms of Vemma, Users' passion for Vemma, Internet Traning opportunities, Prevalence of Unhealthy eating, need for nutritional supplements, health benefits of antioxidant fruit

Vitamin Absorption

“He paid $14.95 for a bottle of multivitamin tablets and ended up flushing the antioxidants down the toilet!” This conventional wisdom for some is that the vitamin absorption rate of tablets is zilch. People, accordingly, are advised to buy and eat fresh vegetables. However, these same people are told that farm produce today is just not as nutritious as fifty years ago because of soil erosion and pollutants. People seem to be caught between fresh produce with diminishing nutrition and pill supplements with little or no vitamin absorption. They thus lose out on the boost antioxidant fruit can give in the body's fight against the oxidation of organs by free radicals.


Vitamin Absorption Rate of Pills and Liquid Vitamins

Some claim that only 20% of a pill’s nutrients gets absorbed into the blood stream. A quasi lab study by Vitamin Manic found that pills were absorbed at a 30% rate while the vitamin absorption rate of liquid vitamins was 90%. Nutritional-supplement-truth.com reports that coating pills with Enteric (aqueous based) can boost vitamin absorption in tests to 80-83%. Nutritional-supplement-truth.com does add, though, that enteric coatings are very rare and are seldom found in the sale of nutritional supplements.

Liquid Vitamins and Nutrients Available with High Vitamin Absorption Rate

High powered antioxidant fruit, including the top three (wolfberry, mangosteen, and acai) are sold in liquid form. Of course, others fruits are also sold in juice form. Those looking to boost their bodies' defenses against free radicals have many attractive choices.

Tags: vitamin absorption, liquid vitamins, antioxidant fruit
Categories: Food Nutrition Decrease, Vitamin Absorption, Organ Oxidation

AntiOxidant Fruit – Mangosteen.

The first time I ran into the name “mangosteen fruit,” I was investigating the super juice Vemma. Vemma had been advertised as a super antioxidant, but I thought that sobriquet was due primarily to Vemma’s inclusion of Green Tea. I knew something about antioxidants because I had been swallowing Vitamin C and E capsules for several years. However, now I was to learn that I was about to enter the big leagues of antioxidants – green tea, acacia, and mangosteen. Being a follower of baseball and baseball standings as a kid, I wondered how these super antioxidant fruits stood up against each other.

I was surprised by my findings. My first search was looking at various web pages of products like Xanou, Mona Vie, Vemma, or ResVTrol. All of these products try to match not just one antioxidant after the anti-aging diseases, but hurl an army of them. For example, ResVTrol combines the famed red grape skin extract found also in wine with green tea. Mona Vie mixes the acai berry with cherries, blueberries, pomegranates, and the impressive wolfberry. Vemma adds Mangosteen and Green tea as their heavy hitting antioxidants along with cherries, bananas, oranges, watermelon, and avocados. So how does a layperson grasp the armies. The products all featured antioxidant fruit.

It turns out that there is an antioxidant value called ORAC that can be used as measure of an antioxidant fruit’s value. According to Garry Crystal a high ORAC score means a substance has an elevated antioxidant strength. A substance with a high ORAC value, a substance with great antioxidant strength, Crystal adds, would be better able to help the body in its defenses against such diseases as heart disease and cancer. Corrosion and rust involve a type of oxidation which we are used to seeing on neglected pipes. Oxidation in the body might be seen, as my dad used to say, a rusting of pipes and organs inside. An antioxidant absorbs the oxygen free radicals inside the body that damages vessels and organs.

Ok. So what fruit has the highest orac value? There is a website called “ORAC Antioxidant Value List: Comparison Chart” which gives ORAC scores to some 39 fruits and vegetables. There were two big surprises to me. The first surprise was that the acai berry did not have the top ORAC value. It was third or fourth, depending on how you count the second surprise. Number 1 on the list was the Wolfberry. The Wolfberry was tallied in two varieties: dried ningxia (#1 on the chart) and Chinese(#2). The third antioxidant fruit was Mangosteen. You might want to check the chart to see how the less exotic (at least to me) fruits fared. I was surprised to see that black raspberries were a fairly close rival to the acai berry. And black raspberries are more than 5 times as strong an antioxidant fruit as the much publicized blueberries.

Practically any combination of these anitoxidant fruits, whether from the companies mentioned above as known examples on the internet, or from some other companies should help consumers' bodies to fend off free radicals. It was just interesting to see how powerful these antioxidant fruits are and to what lengths companies will go to make their products ever so much more powerful.

So I guess you have to do your own research to find how good and nutritious certain foods can be. You cannot depend on ads – and maybe not even blogs like this one! Until Next Time.

TAGS: MANGOSTEEN, ORAC, ANTIOXIDANT FRUIT

CATEGORIES: Anitoxidant Fruit, Power of Mangosteen, ORAC Values, ORAC Comparisons, benefits of antioxidant fruit