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Acai Berry Research: More Scientific Studies
Needed
Brazilian acai
berry is served as food, beverages and medicines
by the native Amazonian for centuries before it
gains popularity on the world market over recent
years. It is marketed in various form as a tasty
“superfood” that is rich in nutrients. It is
always linked with words such as health,
wellness, energy, and organic in advertisements.
It is also promoted as athletic energy enhancer,
weight-loss products and metabolism booster.
However, there are very few scientific
researches done on acai fruit as fresh acai
berry is only available in deep Amazon where no
laboratory facility is available. Its reputation
is just based on the assumptions that dark color
fruit would have lots of nutrients and have
great antioxidant properties. Until the end of
year 2006, there were only a few studies reports
on acai published in
PubMed, the U.S. National
Library of Medicine online database. Most of the
studies however, were performed on animals, such
as rat.
 An in-vitro study
done by University of Florida in year 2006
showed that acai berry contains antioxidants
that destroyed experimental human’s cancer
cells. However, experts are yet to confirm that
the antioxidants actually have any positive role
in preventing cancer in real human body. This is
because antioxidants’ chemical activity might be
influenced by other factors, such as nutrient
absorption, metabolism and other biochemical
processes.
Another research
done by Texas AgriLife Research scientists in
year 2008 showed that the acai berry is able to
be absorbed by human body in the form of acai
juice and acai pulp as well. This is the first
research done that involved people. This finding
is important as products made from this fruit
are heavily marketed over the world market as
health improving dietary supplements as it is
believed to have various antioxidants.
It is too early
to make a conclusion whether acai is as good as
what acai products marketers claimed. More
researches and scientific studies are needed to
determine if acai consumption really helps in
disease-preventing and disease-fighting, and if
yes, the proper dose that is beneficial for
people.
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This
page was last modified on:
December 11, 2011
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