The Antioxidant Power of Açaí vs. Apples
“Despite being used for a long time as food and beverage” in the Amazon, açaí berries have only been researched scientifically since the beginning of this century. A number of years ago, I reviewed that research in my video Clinical Studies on Açaí Berries, starting with in vitro studies showing that açaí could kill leukemia cells in a Petra dish at levels you might expect to find in the bloodstream after eating one or two cups of açaí pulp and could also cut the growth of colon cancer cells in half.
Unfortunately, as I discuss in my video The Antioxidant Effects of Açaí vs. Apples, subsequent published studies have failed to find such benefits for that particular type of colon cancer, a different type of colon cancer, or an estrogen-receptor negative form of breast cancer. An açaí extract did appear to kill off a line of estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer cells, but to achieve that level of açaí nutrients in your breast, you’d have to eat about 400 cups of açaí pulp.
The problem with many of these Petra dish studies is that they use concentrations that you could never realistically achieve in your bloodstream. For example, as you can see at 1:48 in my video, açaí berries may exert a neuroprotective effect, blocking the buildup of amyloid fibers implicated in Alzheimer’s—but only at a dose reached by drinking about 2,000 cups at one time. They may also have an anti-allergy effect or decrease bone loss—at a mere 1,000 cups a day.
In my previous video Clinical Studies on Açaí Berries, I also talked about a clinical study in which subjects were asked to drink less than a cup a day of açaí in a smoothie. They appeared to get significant improvements in blood sugar, insulin levels, and cholesterol. Now, there was no control group and it was a small study, but there’d never been a bigger study trying to replicate it until a study published in 2016.
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