The Commercial Hype on Anti-Oxidant ORAC Values

As many of you may know, the race is on for the best superfood out there. It's been heating up over the last few years with many more exotic fruits and juices that most of us have never heard of before. Well here's one piece of advice right from the get go: DO YOUR HOMEWORK AND MAKE AN EDUCATED NOT EMOTIONAL DECISION!

All the talk these days is to measure up and beat the "other guys". Words like anti-oxidants, beta mangostin, alpha mangostin, phyto-nutrients, ORAC values and comparison charts. "We have more than the other guys...". Suddenly chocolate is healthy again and many companies are praising their newest water creation with added this and added that. People, get real. How processed is your product? How much sugar is in it? Is it reconstituted or made from extracts? How much real whole food is in the product they are claiming to be the next best thing? Well, they have to catch up with these new words in their ads to stop loosing market shares in the exploding wellness boom ("The Wellness Revolution", by Paul Zane Pilzer). People are becoming more and more critical, educated and demand high quality natural products in nutrition, skin care, or anything they use and especially what they put in or on their bodies.

The issue with the anti-oxidants though, has reached high distortion. Everyone is measuring up and making decisions based on ORAC levels. Well think again. It's only one part of the story. Nature and our bodies are a bit more complex than that. Otherwise we could just keep taking pharmaceuticals and swallow a "get young & beautiful" pill if everything were that easy. So allow me to let you in on a little secret: 

ORAC alone says only very little about the power of the mangosteen or any other food for that matter. It's only one part of the picture. And while I'm at it, there is no other natural source in the world that has more benefits to offer in one single food than the mangosteen whole fruit. What's the whole "trick"? XANTHONES make the whole difference and they happen to be propriotory to the mangosteen. Also: C-RP (C-Reactive Protein) is far more important than ORAC. ORAC is an easily manipulated number. The value that is perceived to demonstrate the power of an anti-oxidant is seriously misleading. Dr. Stone addressed this anti-oxidant ORAC number beautifully. He said simply put:

"The number of different anti-oxidants is what is really important. Imagine a Free Radical as a puzzle-piece shape. You must have the right anti-oxidant puzzle-piece to complete it and have it exit the body. No single anti-oxidant can address all free radicals. That means ORAC means very little in the human body. The power of the mangosteen anti-oxidants is that there are over 40 different configurations to help complete and rid the body of a multitude of different free radicals." --Dr. Robert Stone, D.O.

There was also a letter of apology issued by Brunswick Labs for the findings on ORAC that were used to lead people to believe that one product was better than another.

To overcome this objection....it is a simple matter of education on what is really important. While ORAC scores can be and are chemically altered to reach 100,000 for competitive commercial reasons, that does NOT translate to the effect in the human body. The human body absorbs NATURAL WHOLE FOOD supplements many times over anything chemically synthesized. Refer to the 202 biological activities by Dr. Duke and ask: "Where is the list for the other supplement you are looking at? This list only pertains to WHOLE FOOD MANGOSTEEN."

Tips:


For a complete list of the 202 benefits of the xanthones from the mangosteen, see Dr. Duke's list .

Also see the article by Dr. Vaughn Johnson on why everyone should do a C-RP test when doing their next blood work.

If you think the Mayo clinic is a trust worthy source of evaluating anything in the field of health, you might want to check out the article in Martha Stuart's "Living" magazine on why for the first time a fruit (the mangosteen ) is being tested on humans on a huge scale.

If you still can't get enough, check out the studies on mangosteen and xanthones in the National Library of Medicine.