Stop Brain Decline with Antioxidants

Calories and Antioxidants

Why do prunes and raisins rank so high in antioxidant capacity? Because drying removes water and concentrates their antioxidants. Plums, which become prunes when dried, have only 16 percent as much ORAC value. It’s the same for grapes, which become raisins. Thus, dried fruits are an efficient way to get antioxidants into your body, although they carry a liability of a few extra calories. When you eat 3240 ORACs in a cup of blueberries you take in 82 calories; the same number of ORACs in seven prunes gives you 140 calories. The best way to get scads of antioxidant power with minuscule calories: drink tea.

Super Brain-Saving Juices

You can’t always judge a juice by its source. Tests show that commercial grape juice and tomato juice had much higher antioxidant capacity than fresh red grapes and fresh toma­toes. But commercial orange juice had lower antioxidant capacity than fresh oranges. Incidentally, red wine had about the same antioxidant capacity as red grape juice.

Of five juices tested in Tufts labs, red grape juice (Welch’s 100% Concord) won by a mile! It has four times more antioxidant capacity than the others. Unfortunately, it is also high in sugar. Grapefruit, tomato, and orange were approximately equal in antioxidant activity, with apple juice less so.

Turn Yourself into an Antioxidant

Think of it this way: Your whole body is exposed to con­stant assaults by free radical chemicals that, to be blunt, tend to turn you and your brain rancid, just like a piece of fatty meat out of the refrigerator too long. But what if you could don a kind of internal Superman suit that acts as armor to repel or neutralize those perpetual chemical attacks? Actually, you can.

That’s what fortifying yourself with antioxidants really does. Scientists now have good evi­dence that piling in antioxidants builds an invisible biological armor that helps deflect attacks on cells and on sen­sitive brain tissue in particular. You can become your own best antioxidant. Relatively new commercial blood tests can reveal how strong your antioxidant defenses are.

Unquestionably, if you could check your blood after eat­ing antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables, it would show that the antioxidants are digested and absorbed. Most important, scientists have proof that eating antioxidant-rich foods boosts antioxidant protection, as measured by the ORAC test. Tufts researchers Drs. Ronald L. Prior and Guohua Cao tested the antioxidant capacity of the blood of thirty-six normal healthy men and women, ages twenty to eighty. In the year before the study began, the subjects averaged five servings of fruits and vegetables daily, con­taining 1670 ORAC units.

During the fifteen-day test, they doubled consumption to ten daily servings, and 3300-3500 ORAC units daily. The exciting part: This and subsequent experiments showed that blood antioxidant capacity jumped 15 to 25 percent.

Interestingly, Drs. Prior and Cao found that the antiox­idant capacity of humans may plateau, so that adding more fruits and vegetables does not always push it up farther.

How much it takes to elevate antioxidant activity and how high you can drive it up depends on individual makeup. Dr. Cao explains that each person has a distinc­tive internal antioxidant defense system, and how much you can improve it by eating more fruits and vegetables depends on your unique biology. If your antioxidant defenses are low, you may get a bigger boost than some­one with an existing high-antioxidant capacity, he says. “Each body regulates antioxidant defenses, depending on a multitude of factors, including genes.”

How Much Is Enough?

According to Tufts tests, most Americans should eat more than 3500 ORAC units a day to significantly lift human antioxidant activity, says Dr. Prior. Eating 5000 to 6000 ORAC units daily would be more protective. Most Americans now take in about 1200 ORAC units daily, averaging about three fruits and vegetables per day, according to USDA esti­mates. The number of ORACS you take in daily, of course, depends on which fruits and vegetables you choose. As Dr. Prior says, “you can pick seven with low values and get only about 1300 ORAC units. Or you can eat seven with high val­ues and reach 6000 ORAC units or more.”

It’s not difficult. One cup of blueberries alone provides 3200 ORAC units! Add 1/2 cup strawberries and an orange, and you’re already up to 5500. Note: Fruit is generally higher in antioxidant capacity than vegetables.

The message is no longer just to eat fruits and vegeta­bles; the information is now available to enable you to choose ones with the most powerful antioxidant capabili­ties to ward off cell deterioration.

BOTTOM LINE: Eating fruits and vegetables is an easy way to make a dramatic impact in saving your brain cells from destruction. And you can do it rapidly—within several days! In young people antioxidant capacity rose dramatically in five to six days. People over age sixty needed ten to eleven days to reach the same heights of antioxidant capacity, according to Tufts tests.

Eating ten ounces of fresh spinach pushed up blood antioxidant scores more than taking 1250 milligrams of vitamin C. Eight ounces of strawberries boosted blood antioxidants as much as drinking two five-ounce glasses of red wine.