What is antioxidant?

Antioxidants are a class of chemical substances naturally found in our food which can prevent or reduce the oxidative stress of the physiological system.

Free radical production occurs continuously in all cells as part of normal cellular function. However, excess free radical production originating from endogenous or exogenous sources might responsible for the cell damage in the body and contribute to various kinds of health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes, macular degeneration, and cancer. Antioxidants are an inhibitor of the process of oxidation, even at relatively small concentration and thus have diverse physiological role in the body. A variety of free radical scavenging antioxidants is found in dietary sources like fruits, vegetables and tea, etc.

Free oxygen radicals plays cardinal role in the etiology of several diseases like arthritis, cancer, atherosclerosis etc. The oxidative damage to DNA may play vital role in aging2and the presence of intracellular oxygen also can be responsible to initiate a chain of inadvertent reaction at the cellular level and these reaction cause damage to critical cell bio-molecules. These radicals are highly toxic and thus generate oxidative stress in plants.

Based on their solubility, antioxidants are broadly categorized into two groups: water soluble and lipid soluble. In general, water-soluble antioxidants, such as ascorbic acid, glutathione, and uric acid, have functions in the cell cytosol and the blood plasma.

Vitamin C, Vitamin E, α-carotene , Licopein, Selenium, Polyphenol, Glutathione, Proxidase, Cystine are main sources of antioxidants. Fruit juices, beverages and hot drinks contain high amounts of antioxidants, like polyphenols, vitamin C, vitamin E, Maillard reaction products, â-carotene, and lycopene. The consumption of fruit juices, beverages and hot drinks was found to reduce the morbidity and mortality caused by degenerative diseases.

What is antioxidant?

Lingonberry or cowberry

The lingonberry, also known as the cowberry, fox berry, mountain cranberry, partridgeberry and red whortleberry, is a small evergreen shrub of the Ericaceae family, which grows wild in the mountainous regions of Scandinavia, Russia, Canada and in the United States - Maine.

Lingonberries are circumboreal woody dwarf to low growing, rhizomatous, evergreen shrubs. Lingonberry leaves are thick and leathery, elliptic to obovate, slightly revolute, glossy bright green above, pale and glandular below with entire margins.

Although lingonberry has been considered among the most important of the fruit jellies, no evidence exist about its importance in the diet of earlier times.

Lingonberry has been important as a supplier of energy and vitamins. Lingonberry fruit differs from most of the other wild berry species owing to its long term storage potential. Lingonberry is a food native to Scandinavia.

Lingonberry has shown antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects in laboratory studies. The fruits have been described as ‘shaped like blueberries but acid like cranberries’. They are pleasantly tart and aromatic, but may be bitter, especially when unripe.

Lingonberry fruit contains large amounts of aroma compounds and anthocyanins, negligible amounts of proteins and only small amounts of minerals, although lingonberry fruit provides 4 mg vitamin C, 0.02 mg carotene, and 67 kcal of energy per 100 g.

In Sweden, lingonberry has been used as a food and as a traditional medicine to treat inflammatory disease and wounds.
Lingonberry or cowberry

What is pterostilbene?

A study published in 2007 in Clinical Cancer Research, describes research conducted by scientists at Rutgers University and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in the relationship between pterostilbene a naturally occurring antioxidant in blueberries and colon cancer.

What is pterostilbene? Pterostilbene is a natural methylether analog of resveratrol, and it has been demonstrated to have antioxidant activity similar to that of resveratrol. Pterostilbene is generated by plants in response to microbial infestation or exposure to ultraviolet light.

Pterostilbene is present in some small fruits such as grapes and berries so Vaccinium.

In addition to colon cancer cell lines, pterostilbene inhibit the proliferation of preadipocytes and breast cancer cell lines.

Research done on pterostilbene shows it has the ability to lower blood glucose; it is proven to be effective fighting cancer, with strong antioxidant properties.

USDA researchers found that pterostilbene appears to step up the activity of cells in the liver that reduce the production of cholesterol and other artery-clogging fats.

In fact, the USDA people hint that pterostilbene could be extracted from blueberries to make commercial anti-cholesterol meds with fewer side effects than those currently on the market.
What is pterostilbene?