"antioxidants" news and stories

Good news for me and most everyone I know - a new study has linked coffee consumption to a lower risk of developing age-related dementia. Swedish and Danish researchers tracked coffee-drinking habits in a group of 1,409 men and women for an average of 21 years. After controlling for various socioeconomic and health factors, the researchers found that subjects who drank three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed age-related dementias, including Alzheimers, as those who had two cups or less.

Scientists are unsure how or why coffee might have a protective effect against dementia, but speculate that it might be due to an antioxidant effect. Coffee-drinking has already been shown to have a link with lower risk of type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

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I think I've heard of mangosteens before, at least I've heard the name. Apparently, though, the tropical fruit is all the rage in Japan.

According to this post from InventorSpot, mangosteens, or juice drinks made from them, are very popular in Japan right now because they're supposed to be high in antioxidants and ward off cancer in mice (though that hasn't been tested in humans).

Mangosteens are originally from Thailand, but they're difficult to export from the region because they are so preishable. Also, the tree can only be grown in tropical climates. Those factors make even pureés made from Mangosteens pretty expensive anywhere outside of Southeast Asia.

Now that I know a little more about the fruit I'm curious about it. Have any of you had mangosteen? What do you think about it?

It's been known for quite some time that blueberries are high in antioxidants. Recently I learned that another blue food is also high in these healthful compounds: blue corn tortillas. Not only that, the pale blue-gray discs also have more protein and less starch than their white-corn cousins. All of this comes as very good news for me, considering I usually eat things like pork fried in lard betwixt my tortillas. Now all I need to do is convince some local taquerias to start offering blue tortillas.

Mexican and Venezuelan researchers recently published their findings on blue corn tortillas in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Since blue corn is so high in antioxidants, the scientists believe consuming it may help to fight colon cancer and other diseases. The high levels of antioxidants in blue corn result from pigments called anthocyanins. What I'd like to know is whether these guys did any research on the inky purple Peruvian beverage chicha morada made from, you guessed it, blue corn.

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Sometimes I wonder what "better" means when it comes to food and dieting and health.

For example, this article. It says that a ten year study by researchers at the University of California have discovered that organic tomatoes have twice the amount of flavonoids (a kind of antioxidant) than regular tomatoes. They found that the organic variety had 79% more quercetin and 97% more kaempferol. It could be due to the lack of fertilzer.

But even Britain's Food Standards Agency says that while some organic foods have more or different nutrients doesn't mean they are necessarily better. Though, hey, tomatoes are great for you in general.

Although I've always felt this way, it is nice to be vindicated. That lovely, thick, cloudy apple "cider" that you see in your farmers market or supermarket in the fall is way better for you than the clear, filtered apple juice.

Researchers have found that the cloudy cider has much more antioxidants than clear apple juice. Just as you would think, when the cloudy apple juice is filtered all the good stuff gets stripped right out, along with much of the tart and tangy flavor. Sure the clear juice looks nicer, and has a much longer shelf life, but the health benefits are much less.

The cloudy juice has up to four times the levels of polyphenols, a group of antioxidant plant compounds and in experiments the cloudy juice was the more effective free radical scavenger. The research even looked at juice made from several varieties of apples and found that some have even more health benefits than others. Of course the old adage of an apple a day keeps the doctor away still stands. If you want to most vitamins, antioxidants, polyphenols, etc. then just eat a nice fresh whole apple.

On just a side note. What most of the US calls cider, that nice cloudy fresh squeezed apple juice, is more properly called sweet cider. Cider, also called hard cider, is the alcoholic, fermented juice.

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