You need ogygen and anti-oxidants..
The term anti-oxidant is heard in a lot of nutritional circles and you can find lots of foods and supplements that are labeled “high in anti-oxidants” but that description is totally subjective. It’s like describing someone as tall. If you are 5’ 10” you are tall in Japan perhaps, but not in the United States, so the key to terminology is having standards that are measurable and consistent. A key to that is having some sort of governing body that regulates that sort of thing. For anti-oxidants that standard is called the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, which is normally abbreviated ORAC.
The governing agency which will soon be validating these standards is the AOAC, Association of Official Analytical Chemists. This ensures that you are comparing apples to apples when you look at a label, because the way things are right now you could easily be confused by ORAC values that are listed on any given item.
How that happens is the same confusion you often see in regards to caloric content. You see calories serving size on a package of candy (or whatever) and think, “oh, this is only 120 calories” but upon closer inspection you see that the tiny package contains four serving. Yikes. This is misleading, but totally legal. I won’t get into the ethical question, but it certainly seems to be skirting that issue.
ORAC values are kicked around in the same way. You are looking to get maximum anti-oxidant value for your dollar, and you need to be very careful how the information is presented. You may think an anti-oxidant beverage is giving you good value, only to discover that the per ounce value is much lower than, say, whole fruits. In addition to that whole fruits also provide more fiber and other important factors, but that, again, is another issue.
The important thing for the consumer to realize is that when you are looking at ORAC values, make sure that the portion size is taken into consideration. Anti-oxidants are very important for fighting the free radicals in your system, but if those anti-oxidants aren’t bio-available, you aren’t doing yourself any good. That is the “gold” in the ORAC system of measurement is that it takes that bioavailability into consideration.
For example, if you take iron supplements, it may list 45 milligrams on the label, but if your body does not take that 45 milligrams and get it into your bloodstream, it might as well contain zero. If that supplement is 50% bio-available, you are better off taking something that contains less iron, but crosses over into your bloodstream from your digestive tract more efficiently.
Measuring that efficiency, that bioavailability is the biggest benefit to ORAC. You may have noticed ORAC ratings starting to appear on items in the grocery store, or in your supplements. Hopefully with a little bit of information it will be more helpful to you as you make selections to maximize the health benefits.
