Whilst scientists are keen to investigate and prove the benefits of so-called “super foods”, we — the consumer — are keen to reap the rewards of these investigations. With the acai berry’s popularity soaring, scientists have been working overtime to see just what it is that this unique fruit can do for as. As the multitude of proven, tangible benefits offered by the humble acai berry mount almost daily, so the popularity of the berry grows even quicker in response.

It was with great excitement that I read a University of Florida study on the effects of the acai berry upon leukemia cells. The lab tests executed by the boffins in the Florida labs showed that extracts from acai berries triggered a self-destruct response in up to 86% of leukemia cells tested. The tests were, it seems, in direct response to some of the claims made by manufacturers, distributors and retailers of acai-based products. Stephen Talcott is quoted in the article as saying:

Acai berries are already considered one of the richest fruit sources of antioxidants. … This study was an important step toward learning what people may gain from using beverages, dietary supplements or other products made with the berries.

Acai berries are not alone in having the properties necessary to attack leukemia in controlled lab tests. Grapes, guavas, mangoes and many other fruits contained the antioxidants which were identified as being responsible for the startling results. Berries — and acai berries in particular — are renowned for having a very high ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity — the measure used to determine the antioxidant capacity of different foods) rating, and may be particularly effective at combating the cells.

The type of antioxidant that produces this behavior is the anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are particularly effective against molecules called ‘free radicals’ which are harmful to some of our body’s cells. Free radicals are produced either as by products of the body’s functions or introduced into our system by pollutants such as cigarette smoke and gas fumes. At the very extreme free radicals can actually change the DNA of a cell and thus introduce a cancer into the body.

Talcott went on to explain that although the test results were very encouraging and showed good activity against the cancer cells, it did not necessarily mean that acai berries could prevent or cure leukemia in people. When active leukemia in people was considered, there are too many variable factors that come into play which may influence the antioxidants’ chemical activity. This is, of course, not to say that it doesn’t help against leukemia cells in humans, just that scientists are unable to prove anything as yet.

This is undoubtedly a very exciting discovery, but why has it taken until now for scientists to uncover the potential benefits of acai berries? Stephen Talcott again:

One reason so little is known about acai berries is that they’re perishable and are traditionally used immediately after picking. Products made with processed acai berries have only been available for about five years, so researchers in many parts of the world have had little or no opportunity to study them.

It is generally recognized that an increased consumption of fruit and vegetables of most types can be closely associated with a decreased risk of contraction of a number of afflictions including heart disease and cancer. Finding that the acai berry is super-charged with the necessary antioxidants is a very exciting step toward to making the world a healthier place.

References

1. Nordlie, Brazilian berry destroys cancer cells in lab, UF study shows, University of Florida News. Source [retrieved 19 Feb 2009]
2. Sterling, Got Anthocyanins?, NewHope.com. Source [retrieved 19 Feb 2009

Source: http://acaiberrysite.com/can-acai-berries-really-help-to-fight-cancer/

Cancer is one of the only things that we, as a race, cannot stop. Doctors have worked for centuries developing ways to slow cancer, but we all know that there is no cure. Cancer kills thousands each year, and is one of the top causes of death worldwide. Today, we will look at a new means of preventing cancer; the Acai berry.

The Acai berry is known mostly as a weight loss supplement, but with so many people buying Acai berries, scientists and doctors have began to study the effects of this berry further. What they have found is shocking: Acai berries can actually help prevent and eliminate cancer.

Free radicals are cells that are picked up through toxins, pesticides, chemicals, etc, and they cause serious damage to your body. The damage free radicals cause has been linked to many disorders and diseases such as cancer, arthritis, and more. The only way to counter free radicals is to eliminate them with antioxidants. Acai berry contains more antioxidants than any other berry or fruit on earth. So, in this way, Acai berries can help to stop cancer before it even begins.

In a recent study, Acai berry was found to actually kill existing cancer cells. The study took place at the University of Florida, and successfully concluded that antibodies found in the Acai berry can actually kill off harmful cancer cells. The experiment did not involve actual humans, but rather isolated cancer cells in a controlled environment. Regardless of the testing conditions, this is exciting news. Who knew that a simple berry could actually help prevent cancer?

Of course Acai berries are not a cure for cancer. There is no real cure, and there probably will never be. However, the Acai berry is proven to eliminate cancer cells, so it’s definitely worth a shot. Further experiments will be done on Acai berries and their connection to cancer, and many are excited to see the results. Within the next few years, scientists from the University of Florida, the same people who conducted the original experiments, plan to test on live humans, which will show the true results.

A lot of people will tell you that Acai berries cure cancer. This is simply not true. Many individuals and businesses are just trying to sell you a product, so they make up blatant lies, or in this case, exaggerate. The simple fact is that there is no significant proof that Acai berries can actually stop cancer once it has entered the body. All we know at this point is that there is a chance, and that Acai can kill cancer cells, at least when they are isolated. It will be interesting to see the results of future experiments.

Source: http://acai-berry.reviewitonline.net/acai-berries-and-cancer/

Heart disease still the most likely reason you’ll die

POSTED: 3:06 p.m. EST, November 1, 2006

(CNN) — It may be America’s No. 1 killer, but people aren’t scared enough of heart disease, says a top U.S. research cardiologist.

“We’ve done a good job of advertising to people that we’re doing better with heart disease, so people tend to sort of feel good about it,” said Dr. Robert Califf, vice chancellor for clinical research at Duke University Medical Center. “We have bypass surgery and stents and drugs that work; the [mortality] rates are declining.”

It’s true that U.S. heart disease deaths overall are down. From 1993 to 2003, cardiovascular disease death rates dropped 22.1 percent.

But more than 910,000 Americans still die of heart disease annually, according to the American Heart Association. And more than 70 million Americans live every day with some form of heart disease, which can include high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stroke, angina (chest pain), heart attack and congenital heart defects.

“It’s sort of accepted as part of the background noise, even though it’s far and away the mostly likely reason that you or I will die,” Califf said.

And it will get more likely, he said. “We’re just on the front end of the baby boomer epidemic, where the projections on the amount of cardiovascular disease are climbing steadily over the next 10 years,” he said.

“We’re delaying the disease, but we’re not preventing it,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, president of the American College of Cardiology and chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Prevention is key, the experts agree, and Americans know what to do: Eat a healthy diet, keep their weight in check, exercise and don’t smoke. But instead, obesity and diabetes rates continue to rise. Roughly two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. And the epidemic is spreading to teenagers and children. (Explainer: Your heart 101)

“We can’t expect significant change until it becomes a cultural mandate,” said Dr. Leslie Cho, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Women’s Cardiovascular Center. “When society as a whole makes conscious decisions to eat better and as a default plan be more active, then we’re going to do better.”

But could that happen anytime soon?

“I don’t know,” she said. “If you had asked me if New York City was going to be smokeless, I would have said no a couple of years ago.” The city’s proposed ban on transfat in restaurant food is another potential advance, she said.

Looking for the new drug

In the meantime, Nissen and other heart experts see cause for optimism in new drugs and surgical techniques that help improve quality of life and could one day reverse the effects of heart disease. (Gallery: Heart help on the horizon)

Nissen is leading clinical trials of a drug that appears significantly to raise HDL, or high-density lipoprotein. HDL is known as the “good cholesterol” because it collects deposits from artery walls and sweeps them back to the liver.

The introduction nearly 20 years ago of statins, drugs that can cut LDL, the low-density lipoprotein or “bad” cholesterol that carries cholesterol through the body, revolutionized treatment of heart disease.

“We’re about to do it again with HDL,” said Nissen, who is optimistic about the future of HDL-raising drug treatment.

By combining the new drugs with the old statin standbys, “we’re going to be able to get a lot of people’s HDL higher than their LDLs. That’s going to make a difference,” Nissen said.

Torcetrapib, the focus of Nissen’s trials, is more effective than previously tested HDL-raising drugs, he said, and in pill form, it’s more practical than its predecessor, which had to be injected. Its notable side effect so far has been a possible one- or two-point rise in a patient’s blood pressure.

But the drug has not been without controversy. Its maker, Pfizer Inc., originally planned to market torcetrapib for use only in combination with the company’s top statin, Lipitor. Doctors and others complained that the proposed combo pill would require patients taking other statins to switch to Lipitor. Last summer Pfizer withdrew that plan and agreed to sell torcetrapib alone.

Nissen expects to get final data from the study next year. Last month, though, Pfizer appeared to be lowering expectations, telling analysts that its pursuit of Food and Drug Administration marketing approval was really the beginning of a broader conversation about the drug’s overall value. The company said it would not be surprised if more data were required before the FDA OKs the drug.

Another drug being closely watched that may be approved for U.S. sale in 2007 is rimonabant, which blocks receptors in the brain that can help reduce the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

The drug made by Sanofi-Aventis has been found to cause weight loss and, more specifically, loss of abdominal fat. Fat around the middle is linked to an increased risk for heart disease. Available in Europe under the brand name Acomplia, rimonabant works both in the central nervous system, blocking a brain receptor that triggers cravings — the so-called “munchy receptor” — and peripherally, in fat cells.

Duke’s Califf noted that depression has been reported as a significant side effect in testing of rimonabant. He said he believes more research is warranted.

“The battlefield of medicine is littered with drugs that ought to work but don’t,” he said.

Seeking stem cell discoveries

The quest for new treatments continues in many directions. The use of stem cells, both promising and controversial, has not had the hoped-for success in improving heart function.

In September, three studies in the New England Journal of Medicine showed only small improvements in patients’ cardiac function after they received stem cells from their own bone marrow.

But Dr. Robert Simari, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, found some unanticipated results that are being studied further. The research, he said, showed that stem cells seemed to have a protective effect against more heart attacks, death or the need for a subsequent stent or bypass surgery.

“I’m thinking these trials are telling us something about cell delivery that we might not have imagined,” Simari said. “That the effect might be more global and protective than one might have considered.”

Rather than suggesting that bone marrow cells could repair a heart by becoming heart cells, the Mayo team is using cells already destined to become endothelial cells, which make up the lining of blood vessels, to try to repair the vessels themselves.

“We think of if it almost as a cellular bandage at a site of injury,” he said.

Simari said he thinks the delivery of cells could help fight the problem of post-treatment clotting. Emerging data shows an increased risk of potentially deadly clots in patients who have received drug-eluting stents to help keep their arteries open. The drug-coated stents, considered revolutionary in heart disease treatment in the last two years, appear to do better than their bare-metal predecessors at keeping the arteries open.

But in an October guest editorial in the online journal of the American College of Cardiology, two doctors asserted that the widespread use of the devices has led to more than 2,000 extra deaths a year from clots. They called for a rethinking of the stents’ use. The FDA plans to hold hearings in December to seek more information on the issue.

Simari said one remedy could be to create a nonclotting surface on the stents. He said he believes the best way to do that is to get the normal healing process started as quickly as possible. “We can do that very quickly by applying cells,” he said.

But when it comes to heart disease, preventive measures are still the best, according to experts.

“Even though there are medications that are coming out, still the hardest thing to do is the best thing for you,” said the Cleveland Clinic’s Cho. “I think the problem is that everybody in America kind of knows what to eat. But it’s just a matter of portion control and a matter of changing your lifestyle so that you do pick good things.”

In the meantime, doctors and researchers will continue to seek ways to improve patients’ quality of life.

“Lifestyle and prevention are always the better strategy, and I believe that and I work at that,” Nissen said. “But when you can’t prevent the disease, we’re going have better tools to treat it.”

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/10/30/heart.overview/index.html

Heart Disease a Leading Cause of Death Worldwide

Global research projects seek to end preventable heart attacks, strokes

A cardiologist points to an area of severe arterial blockage in an image of a heart.

By Erika Gebel
Special Correspondent

Washington — Despite dramatic medical advances over the past 50 years, heart disease remains a leading cause of death globally and the Number 1 cause of death in the United States.

Heart disease, or cardiovascular disease, accounts for 30 percent of deaths worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the United States, almost 700,000 people die from heart disease each year. In 2006, the American Heart Association estimated heart disease would cost Americans more than $258 billion.

Heart disease encompasses several specific heart ailments. One of the most common is coronary heart disease, which accounted for 71 percent of U.S. heart disease fatalities in 2002 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Other common cardiovascular diseases are congenital heart disease, congestive heart failure, pulmonary heart disease and rheumatic heart disease.

Coronary heart disease is caused by a narrowing of the blood vessels that lead to the heart. This occurs when fatty deposits, called atherosclerosis, form along the vessel walls. If these fatty deposits become thick enough to stop blood flow, a heart attack or myocardial infarction results, which can lead to disability or death.

The risk of heart disease can be reduced through lifestyle changes — a healthy diet, physical activity and elimination of tobacco use. Risk indicators like cholesterol levels and blood pressure can be monitored to assess the effectiveness of drug treatments and lifestyle changes in reducing the chances of heart disease. Diabetes and obesity are also heart disease risks. (See “Diabetes Threatens Lives Worldwide” and “Obesity Becoming Worldwide Health Threat.”)

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ON RESEARCH

WHO and the Global Forum for Health Research began a cardiovascular disease research initiative in November 1998. The initiative has six research projects, including community-based interventions and clinical management programs. Researchers from Switzerland, Australia, Finland and the United States are cooperating in this effort.

WHO also sponsors a project called INTER-HEART, a global study that seeks to identify traditional and emerging heart attack risk factors, and to use that information to help develop more effective health policies.

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a division of the National Institutes of Health, is conducting clinical and basic research programs. Basic research is exploratory and involves experiments and studies in a laboratory setting. Clinical trials involve volunteers on whom experimental drugs and devices are tested to ascertain their efficacy and safety.

A surgeon holds a diseased heart removed from a patient during a heart transplant operation.

PREVENTING HEART DISEASE

Treatment and management can help address the heart disease problem, but another effective strategy for curbing this chronic illness is prevention.

In the United States, the CDC operates programs to prevent heart disease in 33 states. The programs promote heart health by educating the public, monitoring risk factors and identifying promising strategies for promoting heart-healthy interventions.

“Our research is about heart disease and stroke prevention. It begins with prevention of the risk factors themselves,” Dr. Darwin Labarthe, director of the CDC Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, told America.gov. “We are working with the World Health Organization in efforts to reduce the intake of salt to prevent high blood pressure or reduce high blood pressure.”

Prevention strategies and treatment options for heart disease are having positive effects. In the United States, the overall death rate from heart disease has decreased since the 1960s but the gains have not been consistent across demographic groups.

For instance, “[t]he gap between blacks and whites has widened in the United States,” Labarthe said. According to the CDC, in 2002, the death rate for heart disease was 30 percent higher among blacks than among whites in the United States.

“The challenges that we face today,” he said, “are to eliminate all preventable heart attacks and strokes beginning with the risk factors themselves and achieving that for all members of the population.”

Source: http://www.america.gov/st/develop-english/2008/July/20080724175631abretnuh0.9819757.html