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Acai Berry Makes Name In U.S. For Antioxidants

UPDATED: 1:20 pm CST January 14, 2008

If you've been swilling pomegranate juice, hoping to reap all the cancer-, obesity- and
wrinkle-fighting benefits of antioxidants, there may be a new drink in town for you.

Amazonian acai is gaining popularity with the health-food crowd.

Antioxidants help the body get rid of free radicals. The body produces free radicals
when it digests food, metabolizes medicine and fights disease, so they are necessary
parts of the human condition, but a buildup can damage the body. Antioxidants and
are credited with preventing coronary artery disease, some cancers, macular
degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and some arthritis-related conditions. according
to WebMD.com.

Pomegranates, blueberries -- even wine, chocolate and coffee -- contain high levels of
antioxidants. The U.S. Department of Agriculture measures those levels with
something called an ORAC score -- Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity.

Acai berries have nearly eight times higher ORAC scores than pomegranate, which
is near the top of published charts. But fewer stores stock acai juice than those
curvaceous bottles of Pom, so where are you going to get it? At No Name Nutrition
supermarket in Omaha, Neb., Todd Hurley offers a variety of acai products, from
boxed juice to pills, powders and liquid supplements at prices from $2.35 for the
single-serving juice box to $38 for a month's supply of supplements.

Acai berries grow at the top of palm trees in Amazonian Brazil. The purple berry with
a significant pit has been made into pulp and eaten by the natives for millennia. But it
is only beginning to become known to the American consumer, desperate for ways to
stave off aging and early death.
Gallons A Day?

After 33 years in business, Hurley has been offering the acai products for about five
years, and he points them out to customers who are looking for antioxidants. He said
the jury is still out on acai, but it shows promise -- as long as people are careful about
promises they read on the Internet.

"Most of the hype is best-case scenario with someone drinking a gallon a day,"
Hurley said.

In fact, Internet claims about the berry range from weight loss to improved libido to
wart removal. Just a few of those claims have been proven in laboratories, and even
fewer in human trials.

Human trials are paramount because of the nature of the gut, unique to each of us
and inhospitable to many compounds. So trials that show something works in the lab
doesn't always prove true once ingested.

For instance, a University of Florida study showed that acai has components able to
inhibit the growth of leukemia cells in the lab, but those results haven't been shown in
animal or human trials, or replicated by others.

Alexander G. Schauss, PhD, has been studying the berries for more than a decade.
He recently presented findings at an international symposium on the health benefits
of fruits and vegetables from a series of human trials that used a retail acai juice
called Mona-Vie..

He said that more than 80 percent of people were able to get antioxidants into their
cells, and that more than 90 percent showed evidence that they were reducing the
effects of cholesterol.

Schauss said that in study after study over 11 years, both in petrie dishes and
humans, his results kept coming back off the charts. Acai is slowly revealing itself to
be a nearly perfect fruit, from its low sugar content, to high fiber and remarkably high
levels of the "good" fat, called monosaturated fats.

"Wow, it's exactly the kind of food the human body wants to eat all the time,"
Schauss said.

Is It A 'Superfood'?

Dr. Nicholas Perricone appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in 2005 and put acai
at the top of his 10 super foods list.

Omaha registered dietitian and clinical herbalist Nicholas Schnell said he agrees that
acai is an incredible food, but he said that because it is relatively hard to get, he
doesn't promote it much to clients.

"You can't go to the store and eat acai as a food. There are tons of other super foods
you can do that with and they are cheap. Beets, blueberries, cherries, pomegrante,
blackberries, carrots, etc., are all super foods. To me, a super food has to be readily
available to consumers at the grocery store at a reasonable price," Schnell said.

Schauss said because acai decays so fast once it falls from the palm tree, Americans
won’t be seeing fresh berries in the marketplace any time soon.
There are many ways to get acai out of the jungle, but Schauss said consumers
should look for products that use berries that were freeze-dried in the Amazon, since
it preserves all of its beneficial attributes. Other preservation methods, such as spray
drying, don’t preserve very much of the benefits of the fresh berry, and therefore you
may not get what you paid for, Schauss said.

That's another reason Schnell is less than bullish on acai.

"All of the traditional healing uses and use by indigenous tribes has been exclusively
with the fresh berry only, used within 24 hours. Science has to prove other methods
are better than 2,000 years of well-documented historical use," Schnell said. "If
companies are going to market it in a new form, such as freeze-dried powder or fresh-
frozen concentrate juice, they have to do the research that its antioxidant levels are
not altered and its medicinal uses are still applicable."

As the science stands now, the experts said, consumers can safely add acai to their
diets to boost overall health, but don't expect specific results.
greatness of the Acai berry in flashy ads and great
promotionals, but Mona-Vie has quietly moved on with
great success.   Flashy ads have never sold a drop of this
product, and promises beyond belief are nothing more than
that.

Check out my web site at
www.mymonavie.com/davidmilligan.  

If you are uncomfortable with Multilevel marketing
tactics, not to worry, I sell the product because I enjoy
your choice.

Try it and Enjoy.

Dave