Consumers hear a lot today about “healthy foods” that are shown to prevent disease.

Missing from news broadcasts are details about how to benefit from specific plant components that published studies document help protect against degenerative disorders.

In seeking to clarify their knowledge base, scientists are focusing a lot of research on compounds known as anthocyanins, which provide berries and other plants with their rich deep red and purple colors and have been proven to combat multiple pathways of disease.

In this report, we provide you with research findings about various anthocyanin-rich plants and how you can access their disease prevention benefits.

Hidden in berries and other plants are diverse bioactive compounds that provide broad-spectrum protection against cognitive decline, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

According to the National Institutes of Health, “There is accumulating evidence that much of the health-promoting potential of berries may come from phytochemicals, the bioactive compounds not designated as traditional nutrients.”

What the National Institutes of Health is saying is that the disease prevention properties of healthy plants extends beyond the vitamins and minerals they naturally supply.

Anthocyanins: Powerful Antioxidant Protection

Extensive research confirms that the most powerful antioxidant berries are those that contain a class of polyphenols known as anthocyanins. These nutrients create the deep red, blue, and purple pigments found in plants such as blueberries, elderberries, blackberries, and açaí.1,6-8 Berry anthocyanins strongly combat oxidative stress, a causative factor in the pathogenesis of many major diseases1 such as Parkinson’s disease,9 Alzheimer’s disease,10 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),11,12 cancer,13 and allergic disorders.14

In a new development, scientists are suggesting that superior free-radical defense is just part of the berry benefit story.

Mechanisms: Beyond Antioxidant Activity

Recent evidence indicates that anthocyanin-rich foods exert their effects through multiple mechanisms that go far beyond berries’ well-known antioxidant activity. These underlying pathways have been shown to:

l  Enhance glucose metabolism and reduced glucose absorption.

l  Reduce the formation and enhance immune system clearance of amyloid protein, the hallmark protein seen in the brain of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease.

l  Inhibit LDL oxidation16 and improved lipid profiles.

l  Induce cancer apoptosis (programmed cell death) in several cancer cell lines.

l  Possesses antiviral, antibacterial, and antiparasitic activity.

l  Inhibit DNA damage.

l  Inhibit inflammatory gene expression and reduce inflammation.

l  Reduce capillary permeability and fragility.

l  Boost nitric oxide, an important cell signaling molecule.

l  Improve neuronal cellular communication.

l  Inhibit pathways that lead to tumor cell resistance to chemotherapeutic agents.30

l  Metabolize carcinogens and xenobiotics.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW-The Disease-Fighting Power of Anthocyanins

l  A barrage of about 10,000 oxidative assaults befalls each of your body cells every day, accelerating aging and age-related diseases.

l  The deep pigmentation of berries and some other foods indicates their rich content of powerful anthocyanins, which provide broad, disease-prevention activity.

l  Anthocyanins and other compounds offer comprehensive antioxidant defense, as well as regulatory control of inflammation, enzymes, gene expression, and many other biochemical pathways.

l  Extracts afford aging humans the concentrated polyphenols they need to optimally inhibit or even reverse free-radical aging.

ARE ANTHOCYANIN EXTRACTS SUPERIOR TO WHOLE BERRIES?

Researchers at Ohio State University treated rats with a carcinogenic compound and fed them a diet that was 5% made up of berries. Each of the seven test groups ate a different type of berry—açaí, blueberry, and so on.

The scientists noted that there are—and this is crucial—significant, known differences among these berry types in terms of their levels of antioxidants such as anthocyanins and ellagitannins. Despite this, however, they found that all seven berry types proved “equally effective”—both in preventing tumor genesis and inhibiting tumor progression.

This suggested that berries’ antioxidant content alone may not explain all of their beneficial effects.

A different study has enhanced our understanding of the superlative protection provided specifically by extracts of berries.

In tests on mice that were fed high-fat diets, scientists found that purified anthocyanin extracts from strawberries and blueberries prevented obesity and abnormal blood-fat levels (dyslipidemia).

Yet consumption of powdered, whole berries did not!

Berry extracts may provide potent benefits that even the whole berries themselves may not.

As you’ll learn, each different type of berry has been verified to provide protection against a unique set of diseases—and this has an important implication.

Optimum disease protection may require getting a full range of berry types each day—which is almost impossible without the use of supplemental extracts.

Summary

Every cell in the human body is hit by an estimated 10,000 individual strikes by free radicals each day—a factor in aging and degenerative disease onset.

Scientific research suggests that berries and other dark-pigmented foods that are rich in anthocyanins provide frontline defense against multiple diseases of aging.

In addition to strong antioxidant protection, these plant compounds favorably regulate vital genes, signaling compounds, enzymes, metabolic factors, and other vital pathways.

Standardized extracts provide the concentrated anthocyanins—and other polyphenols—to ensure that your tissues derive their multiple benefits.

July 2013

Shared By Michael Downey from http://www.lifeextension.com/