Antioxidant-rich heart health -
Research from test-tube and animal studies has shown that the antioxidants in blueberries may delay aging-related decline in brain function by neutralizing harmful free radicals, reducing inflammation, and altering the expression of certain genes.
Additionally, the antioxidants in blueberries , especially anthocyanins, have been shown to reduce risk factors for heart disease, and lower both LDL cholesterol levels and blood pressure. Learn about the health benefits of blueberries. Strawberries are sweet, versatile, and rich in vitamin C. They also contain a lot of the antioxidant anthocyanin , which gives them their red color.
Research has shown that anthocyanins may help reduce the risk of heart disease by reducing levels of LDL bad cholesterol and raising HDL good cholesterol. Learn about the health benefits of strawberries. Artichokes are a great source of dietary fiber, minerals, and antioxidants.
They are especially rich in an antioxidant known as chlorogenic acid, which may help reduce the risk of certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
That said, the antioxidant content of artichokes can vary depending on how they are prepared. Learn about the health benefits of artichokes. Goji berries are often marketed as a superfood because they are rich in vitamins and minerals. Goji berries also contain unique antioxidants known as Lycium barbarum polysaccharides, which have been linked to a reduced risk of heart disease and cancer.
Moreover, there is limited research on the effects of goji berries on humans. Though these support their health benefits, more human-based research is needed. Learn about the health benefits of goji berries.
Raspberries are a great source of dietary fiber, vitamin C, and manganese. A review of five studies also concluded that the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties of black raspberries may slow down and suppress the effects of a variety of cancers.
Plus, the antioxidants in raspberries, especially anthocyanins, may reduce inflammation and oxidative stress. This may reduce the chance of developing heart disease. That said, most of the evidence for the health benefits of raspberries is from test-tube studies, so more human-focused research is needed.
Learn about the health benefits of raspberries. Kale is one of the most nutritious greens on the planet and is rich in calcium, and vitamins A, K, and C. This is because red varieties of kale contain more anthocyanin antioxidants as well as several other antioxidants that give them their vibrant color.
Learn about the health benefits of kale. Also known as purple cabbage, red cabbage is rich in vitamins C, K, and A, and has a high antioxidant content. It, too, contains anthocyanins, which give it its color and may help reduce inflammation, protect against heart disease, and reduce the risk of certain cancers.
That said, the volume of antioxidants in red cabbage varies depending on how you cook it. Learn about the health benefits of red cabbage. Beans are a diverse group of legumes that are inexpensive and healthy. They are also incredibly high in fiber, which can help keep your bowel movements regular.
Beans are also one of the best vegetable sources of antioxidants, containing a particular antioxidant called kaempferol, which may help with things like reducing chronic inflammation and suppressing cancer growth.
That said, most of the research supporting the benefits of kaempferol has been in animals or test tubes, so more human-based studies are needed. Learn about the health benefits of beans. Beets, also known as beetroot , are a great source of fiber, potassium, iron, folate, and antioxidants.
These give beets their reddish color and have been linked to health benefits. For example, several test-tube studies have linked betalains to a lower risk of cancers in the colon and digestive tract.
Learn more about the health benefits of beats. Spinach is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, and is incredibly low in calories. Learn about the health benefits of spinach. Spices such as ginger , turmeric , and garlic , as well as herbs such as rosemary , parsley , and sage , all contain a variety of minerals, vitamins, and important antioxidants.
Putting them on your food or in your cooking can help reduce oxidative stress, which can help reduce the chance of developing various health conditions. Depending on the specific herb or spice, these diseases include high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney disease, and diabetes.
Okra is a flowering plant with edible seed pods that grows best in warm and tropical climates. It also contains antioxidants that are anti-inflammatory and may help reduce high cholesterol and blood pressure, as well as protect heart and brain health.
Read more about the health benefits of okra. That said, some have more bioactive compounds than others, such as vitamins E and C , for example. Drinks that are high in antioxidants include green tea, pomegranate juice, and acai juice.
They protect your body from potentially harmful molecules known as free radicals, which can accumulate and promote oxidative stress. Oxidative stress raises the risk of heart disease, cancers, type 2 diabetes, and many other chronic conditions. Eating a diet rich in antioxidants can help neutralize free radicals and reduce the risk of these chronic diseases.
By eating a wide variety of the foods in this article, you can boost your blood levels of antioxidants and reap their many health benefits.
Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available. VIEW ALL HISTORY. This article is based on scientific evidence, written by experts and fact checked by experts. Our team of licensed nutritionists and dietitians strive to be objective, unbiased, honest and to present both sides of the argument.
This article contains scientific references. The numbers in the parentheses 1, 2, 3 are clickable links to peer-reviewed scientific papers. Jump to: — What are antioxidants? Another constant threat comes from chemicals called free radicals.
In very high levels, they are capable of damaging cells and genetic material. The body generates free radicals as the inevitable byproducts of turning food into energy. Free radicals are also formed after exercising or exposure to cigarette smoke, air pollution, and sunlight.
Free radicals come in many shapes, sizes, and chemical configurations. What they all share is a voracious appetite for electrons, stealing them from any nearby substances that will yield them. Free radical damage can change the instructions coded in a strand of DNA.
It can make a circulating low-density lipoprotein LDL, sometimes called bad cholesterol molecule more likely to get trapped in an artery wall.
An excessive chronic amount of free radicals in the body causes a condition called oxidative stress, which may damage cells and lead to chronic diseases. The body, long used to this relentless attack, makes many molecules that quench free radicals as surely as water douses fire.
We also extract free-radical fighters from food. They are also involved in mechanisms that repair DNA and maintain the health of cells. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of different substances that can act as antioxidants.
The most familiar ones are vitamin C , vitamin E , beta-carotene , and other related carotenoids, along with the minerals selenium and manganese. Most are naturally occurring, and their presence in food is likely to prevent oxidation or to serve as a natural defense against the local environment.
It is really a chemical property, namely, the ability to act as an electron donor. Some substances that act as antioxidants in one situation may be pro-oxidants—electron grabbers—in a different situation.
Another big misconception is that antioxidants are interchangeable. Each one has unique chemical behaviors and biological properties.
They almost certainly evolved as parts of elaborate networks, with each different substance or family of substances playing slightly different roles.
This means that no single substance can do the work of the whole crowd. Antioxidants came to public attention in the s, when scientists began to understand that free radical damage was involved in the early stages of artery-clogging atherosclerosis.
It was also linked to cancer , vision loss, and a host of other chronic conditions. Some studies showed that people with low intakes of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables were at greater risk for developing these chronic conditions than were people who ate plenty of those foods.
Clinical trials began testing the impact of single substances in supplement form, especially beta-carotene and vitamin E, as weapons against chronic diseases.
Supplement makers touted the disease-fighting properties of all sorts of antioxidants. The research results were mixed, but most did not find the hoped-for benefits. Antioxidants are still added to breakfast cereals, sports bars, energy drinks, and other processed foods , and they are promoted as additives that can prevent heart disease, cancer, cataracts, memory loss, and other conditions.
Randomized placebo-controlled trials, which can provide the strongest evidence, offer little support that taking vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, or other single antioxidants provides substantial protection against heart disease, cancer, or other chronic conditions.
The results of the largest trials have been mostly negative. A modest effect of vitamin E has been found in some studies but more research is needed. A study from the Journal of Respiratory Research found that different isoforms of vitamin E called tocopherols had opposing effects on lung function.
Lung function was tested using spirometric parameters: higher parameters are indicative of increased lung function, while lower parameters are indicative of decreased lung function. The study found that higher serum levels of alpha-tocopherol were associated with higher spirometric parameters and that high serum levels of gamma-tocopherol were associated with lower spirometric parameters.
Though the study was observational in nature, it confirmed the mechanistic pathway of alpha- and gamma-tocopherol in mice studies.
When it comes to cancer prevention, the picture remains inconclusive for antioxidant supplements. Few trials have gone on long enough to provide an adequate test for cancer. High-dose antioxidant supplements can also interfere with medicines. Vitamin E supplements can have a blood-thinning effect and increase the risk of bleeding in people who are already taking blood-thinning medicines.
Some studies have suggested that taking antioxidant supplements during cancer treatment might interfere with the effectiveness of the treatment. Inform your doctor if starting supplements of any kind.
One possible reason why many studies on antioxidant supplements do not show a health benefit is because antioxidants tend to work best in combination with other nutrients, plant chemicals, and even other antioxidants.
For example, a cup of fresh strawberries contains about 80 mg of vitamin C, a nutrient classified as having high antioxidant activity. Polyphenols also have many other chemical properties besides their ability to serve as antioxidants.
There is a question if a nutrient with antioxidant activity can cause the opposite effect with pro-oxidant activity if too much is taken. This is why using an antioxidant supplement with a single isolated substance may not be an effective strategy for everyone.
Differences in the amount and type of antioxidants in foods versus those in supplements might also influence their effects. For example, there are eight chemical forms of vitamin E present in foods. However, vitamin E supplements typically only include one form, alpha-tocopherol.
Epidemiological prospective studies show that higher intakes of antioxidant-rich fruits, vegetables, and legumes are associated with a lower risk of chronic oxidative stress-related diseases like cardiovascular diseases , cancer, and deaths from all causes.
The following are nutrients with antioxidant activity and the foods in which they are found:. Excessive free radicals contribute to chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease, cognitive decline, and vision loss.
Keep in mind that most of the trials conducted have had fundamental limitations due to their relatively short duration and inclusion of people with existing disease.
At the same time, abundant evidence suggests that eating whole in fruits , vegetables , and whole grains —all rich in networks of naturally occurring antioxidants and their helper molecules—provides protection against many scourges of aging.
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The Nutrition Source Menu. Search for:. Home Nutrition News What Should I Eat? In , a rating tool called the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity ORAC was created by scientists from the National Institute on Aging and the United States Department of Agriculture USDA.
It was used to measure the antioxidant capacity of foods. The USDA provided an ORAC database on its website highlighting foods with high ORAC scores, including cocoa, berries, spices, and legumes. Blueberries and other foods topping the list were heavily promoted in the popular press as disease-fighters even if the science was weak, from cancer to brain health to heart disease.
However, 20 years later the USDA retracted the information and removed the database after determining that antioxidants have many functions, not all of which are related to free radical activity. Although this was not a primary endpoint for the trial, it nevertheless represents an important outcome.
In the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation HOPE trial, the rates of major cardiovascular events were essentially the same in the vitamin E A recent trial of vitamin E in Israel, for example, showed a marked reduction in coronary heart disease among people with type 2 diabetes who have a common genetic predisposition for greater oxidative stress.
In the Supplementation en Vitamines et Mineraux Antioxydants SU. MAX study, 13, French men and women took a single daily capsule that contained mg vitamin C, 30 mg vitamin E, 6 mg beta-carotene, mcg selenium, and 20 mg zinc, or a placebo, for seven and a half years.
The vitamins had no effect on overall rates of cardiovascular disease. Lung disease A study from the Journal of Respiratory Research found that different isoforms of vitamin E called tocopherols had opposing effects on lung function.
Cancer When it comes to cancer prevention, the picture remains inconclusive for antioxidant supplements. MAX randomized placebo-controlled trial showed a reduction in cancer risk and all-cause mortality among men taking an antioxidant cocktail low doses of vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, selenium, and zinc but no apparent effect in women, possibly because men tended to have low blood levels of beta-carotene and other vitamins at the beginning of the study.
Age-related eye disease A six-year trial, the Age-Related Eye Disease Study AREDS , found that a combination of vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and zinc offered some protection against the development of advanced age-related macular degeneration, but not cataracts, in people who were at high risk of the disease.
However, relatively short trials of lutein supplementation for age-related macular degeneration have yielded conflicting findings.
The study found that people taking the vitamins were less likely to progress to late-stage AMD and vision loss. However, the study authors noted that taking lutein and zeaxanthin alone or vitamin E alone did not have a beneficial effect on these eye conditions. The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial SELECT Eye Endpoints Study, which followed 11, men for a mean of five years, did not find that vitamin E and selenium supplements, in combination or alone, protected from age-related cataracts.
It did not find that antioxidant supplements of vitamin E or selenium, alone or in combination, protected against dementia compared with a placebo. Early death A meta-analysis of 68 antioxidant supplement trials found that taking beta-carotene and vitamin A and E supplements increased the risk of dying.
It was also difficult to compare interventions because the types of supplements, the dosages taken, and the length of time they were taken varied widely. The same authors conducted another systematic review of 78 randomized clinical trials on antioxidant supplements including beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium alone or in combination.
The study found that both people who were healthy and those with diseases taking beta-carotene and vitamin E supplements had a higher rate of death.
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