Investigacion De La Capacidad De Antioxidantes En Los Alimentos

8604

J. Agric. Food Chem. 2006, 54, 8604−8610

Antioxidant Capacity and Other Bioactivities of the Freeze-Dried Amazonian Palm Berry, Euterpe oleraceae Mart. (Acai)
ALEXANDER G. SCHAUSS,*,† XIANLI WU,‡,§ RONALD L. PRIOR,‡ BOXIN OU,⊥ DEJIAN HUANG,| JOHN OWENS, AMIT AGARWAL,# GITTE S. JENSEN,X AARON N. HART,X AND EDWARD SHANBROM
Natural and Medicinal Products Research, AIMBR Life Sciences,4117 South Meridian, Puyallup, Washington 98373, Agriculture Research Service, Arkansas Children’s Nutrition Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1120 Marshall Street, Little Rock, Arkansas 72202, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 West Markham, Little Rock, Arkansas 72205, Brunswick Laboratories, 6 Thatcher Lane, Wareham, Massachusetts02571, Food Science and Technology Program, Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117543, Singapore, University of California, Irvine, Building 55, 101 The City Drive South, Orange, California 92868, Natural Remedies, 19th K. M. Stone, Hosur Road, Bangalore 560100, India, and NIS Labs, 1437 Esplanade, Klamath Falls, Oregon 97601

The fruit of Euterpe oleraceae,commonly known as acai, has been demonstrated to exhibit significantly high antioxidant capacity in vitro, especially for superoxide and peroxyl scavenging, and, therefore, may have possible health benefits. In this study, the antioxidant capacities of freeze-dried acai fruit pulp/skin powder (OptiAcai) were evaluated by different assays with various free radical sources. It was found to haveexceptional activity against superoxide in the superoxide scavenging (SOD) assay, the highest of any food reported to date against the peroxyl radical as measured by the oxygen radical absorbance capacity assay with fluorescein as the fluorescent probe (ORACFL), and mild activity against both the peroxynitrite and hydroxyl radical by the peroxynitrite averting capacity (NORAC) and hydroxyl radical avertingcapacity (HORAC) assays, respectively. The SOD of acai was 1614 units/g, an extremely high scavenging capacity for O2•-, by far the highest of any fruit or vegetable tested to date. Total phenolics were also tested as comparison. In the total antioxidant (TAO) assay, antioxidants in acai were differentiated into “slow-acting” and “fast-acting” components. An assay measuring inhibition of reactiveoxygen species (ROS) formation in freshly purified human neutrophils showed that antioxidants in acai are able to enter human cells in a fully functional form and to perform an oxygen quenching function at very low doses. Furthermore, other bioactivities related to anti-inflammation and immune functions were also investigated. Acai was found to be a potential cyclooxygenase (COX)-1 and COX-2inhibitor. It also showed a weak effect on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced nitric oxide but no effect on either lymphocyte proliferation and phagocytic capacity.
KEYWORDS: Euterpe oleraceae; acai; reactive oxygen species (ROS); antioxidant; ORACFL; NORAC; HORAC; superoxide; SOD; TAO; cyclooxygenase (COX); macrophage phagocytosis assay; nitric oxide assay; lymphocyte proliferation assayINTRODUCTION

High intake of fruits and vegetables was found to positively associate with lower chance of many diseases by epidemiologi* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: alex@aibmr.com. Phone: 253-286-2888. Fax: 253-286-2451. † AIMBR Life Sciences. ‡ U.S. Department of Agriculture. § University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. ⊥ Brunswick Laboratories. | National University ofSingapore. 3 University of California, Irvine. # Natural Remedies. X NIS Lab.

cal studies and clinical trials. Antioxidant capacity was believed to be one of the possible mechanisms, though others are also involved. Acai, fruits of Euterpe oleraceae Martius, is consumed in a variety of beverages and food preparations in the native land in Brazil, Colombia, and Suriname and used medicinally as an...