O.N.E. Coffee Berry - a great source of antioxidants

Thank you to Martin Day's Fitness & Food Tips Blog for this great article on the coffee berry.

www.martindayfitness.com/blog

Amazing Little Known Antioxident

I bet you didn’t know that one of the most potent antioxidants around has been thrown away for years in the rubbish bin?

Most people know that blueberries, pomegranate, red wine, green tea, and even coffee are potent sources of antioxidants… but the coffee-berry (the berry that covers the coffee bean) is actually one of the most powerful antioxidants you can get.

Up until recently, most of the “coffee-berry” was just seen as waste and thrown away. In recent years, researchers have discovered the super-antioxidant abilities of coffee-berry and are now making it available as an antioxidant supplement.

Of course, we know that getting high levels of antioxidants in your diet is important for fighting the free-radicals involved in aging, cancer risk, and other degenerative diseases — as well as supporting a healthy immune system, and skin protection.

High vitamin C intake may cut diabetes risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An abundance of vitamin C in the diet may help lower a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes, new research suggests.

In a study of middle-aged and older men and women, those with the highest blood levels of vitamin C were significantly less likely to develop diabetes over 12 years than those with the lowest levels, researchers found.

Fruits and vegetables are the main source of vitamin C in Western diets, and blood levels of vitamin C are good markers of fruit and vegetable intake, Dr. Nita G. Forouhi, at the Institute of Metabolic Science at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, England, and colleagues note.

The current findings "re-endorse the public health message of the beneficial effect of increasing total fruit and vegetable intake," the investigators wrote in Archives of Internal Medicine.

Forouhi's team followed 21,831 healthy men and women who were 40 to 75 years old for the development of type 2 diabetes. At study entry, all participants provided detailed health and lifestyle information, as well as blood samples, which investigators used to determine vitamin C levels.

Over the course of the study, 423 men and 312 women developed type 2 diabetes, an overall rate of 3.2 percent.

According to the investigators, the likelihood of developing diabetes was 62 percent lower in men and women with the highest circulating vitamin C levels, relative to men and women with the lowest vitamin C levels.

Factoring out other characteristics associated with diabetes risk, such as older age, gender, family history, alcohol intake, physical activity, smoking status and body weight did not significantly alter these associations.

These data offer "persuasive evidence of a beneficial effect of vitamin C and fruit and vegetable intake on diabetes risk," Forouhi and colleagues conclude.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, July 28, 2008