Health Benefits of Acai Juice
Are you sometimes skeptical when you’re reading the health benefits of acai berry juice put forth by the juicemakers themselves? You should be! As you know, false claims (lose 10 pounds in 10 minutes!) abound when it comes to antioxidant-rich superfoods like the acai berry, pomegranates, mangosteens, etc.
Here’s a more impartial article from WebMD that gives it to you straight on the health benefits of the acai berry.
“Some studies show that acai fruit pulp has a very high antioxidant capacity with even more antioxidant content than cranberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, or blueberry. Studies are ongoing, though, and the jury is still out.
People eat acai berries to address various health conditions. But so far, acai berries have no known health benefit that’s any different than that of other similar fruits.”
While it is true that there haven’t been large scale clinical human trials evaluating the health benefits of “superfoods” like the acai berry, evidence is building that the acai berry naturally contains health benefits that may help with disease prevention in the future. Some marketing messaging for acai berry products is designed to lead the reader in drawing a conclusion that may not actually be true. Still, there is reason to be optimistic about acai and its health benefits according to Monica Giusti of Ohio State University’s Department of Food Science and Technology.
“Giusti and her colleagues have found that applying anthocyanin extracts from a variety of plants to human colon cancer cells in test tubes can significantly slow down or even completely stop the cells’ growth. Researchers think they will find the same cancer-quashing results from other foods that contain anthocyanins.
And similar evidence is mounting for the potential health benefits from anthocyanins in dark-colored fruits like blueberries and pomegranates, fruits in which growers and manufacturers have invested a lot of research money”