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So What Exactly Is An ORAC Rating And What Does It Mean?This test - the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) Assay - was developed by Dr. Cao of the National Institute of Aging in 1992 to measure the level of antioxidant protection of a product as well as the duration of the protection. This test measures the degree, which a product inhibits the action of oxidative agents and the length of time this inhibitor occurs. This assay integrates the strength and duration of antioxidant protection for a product into a single numerical value and has been shown to highly correlate with the level and the time of protection in cells, body tissues and blood levels. In others words, there is a near perfect correlation between the ORAC value and the antioxidant and immune system protection in the body. This is important because oxidative stress has been demonstrated to accelerate the aging process in both cells and blood vessels. Oxidative stress also increases the risk of certain types of cancer, coronary heart disease and many other health maladies. One benefit of using the ORAC method to test a substance's antioxidant capacity is that it takes into account samples with and without lag phases of their antioxidant capacities. This is especially beneficial when measuring foods and supplements that contain complex ingredients with various slow and fast acting antioxidants, as well as ingredients with combined effects that cannot be pre-calculated. A recent paper by Schauss et al. published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reported an extremely high total value of 1027 micromoles TE per gram for a freeze-dried fruit pulp and skin powder from the Acai berry (Euterpe oleracea).[6] This is the highest value ever reported for a fruit or vegetable to this date, after converting values of fresh food weights to dry weights. This includes a hydrophilic ORAC antioxidant capacity of 997 micromoles TE per gram, and a lipophilic ORAC antioxidant capacity of 30 micromoles TE per gram. Recently, a number of health food companies have capitalized on the ratings, with dozens selling concentrated supplements that they claim to be "the number one ORAC product". Most of these values have never been published in the scientific literature so are difficult to evaluate. It is not known whether such values are accurate or how absorbable and functional these concentrated antioxidants are in the human body.
CLICK HERE - USDA Information on high ORAC ratings and aging.
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