The Wellness Rebel by Plantbased Pixie

Author:Plantbased Pixie [Pixie, Plantbased]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786697608
Publisher: Head of Zeus

ACAI

Acai, aside from being constantly mispronounced (its: ah-SIGH-ee not ah-KAI), is an exotic berry with an apparently ridiculously high antioxidant score. It became famous as a weight loss tool on Oprah and the Dr Oz show in the US, despite having no evidence to support this claim (but hey, when has that ever stopped anyone).

But aren’t antioxidants a good thing? They are indeed, but as with all things, only up to a point.

Everyone has heard of antioxidants, but I’m guessing few people know exactly how they work. Antioxidants protect you from cell damage and DNA damage that can lead to accelerated signs of ageing and, in some cases such as UV damage, can lead to cancer. This cell damage occurs because of oxidative stress – the process by which oxygen-based compounds, also known as reactive oxygen species (ROS), are made. ROS are highly reactive species and so want to react with whatever they can find, and quickly, even proteins, DNA or other cell components, thereby damaging them. ROS can occur simply as waste products from cell metabolism (as energy production requires oxygen) or from environmental stresses such as UV or heat exposure.

Some antioxidants are made by the body, such as superoxide dismutase, but they can also be found in food. Vitamins A, C and E, beta-carotene and polyphenols all have antioxidant capacity.

Based on all of this, you’d expect a greater consumption of antioxidants to be associated with better health and even lower cancer rates, right? We know that people with high consumption of fruit and vegetables have a lower incidence of cancer [13], but is that due to the carrot or the beta-carotene? The orange or the vitamin C? We also know that individuals with cancer have lower levels of beta-carotene in their blood [14], and that individuals with high levels of vitamin C in their blood have a reduced risk of stroke [15], but all we have here is correlation, it doesn’t prove that one causes the other.

A logical next step would be to see if actively supplementing with antioxidants improves health. It doesn’t. Supplementing with vitamin A, vitamin E or beta-carotene is associated with increased mortality [16], so you’re actually more likely to die if you supplement with these than if you don’t.

How can this possibly be the case? As always, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Free radicals, or ROS, aren’t a human design flaw, they have a purpose. White blood cells use free radicals to help them kill bacteria, and if there is too much damage in a cell then free radicals signal for it to undergo apoptosis (programmed cell death). Too many antioxidants could allow damaged cells to survive for longer because it disrupts the cell signalling via free radicals, and damaged cells in your body is definitely not what you want.

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