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ORAC Value of foods, Is ORAC value that important?
ORAC is an acronym that stands for 'oxygen radical absorbance capacity.' Berries have some of the highest ORAC values of fruits. Are people relying too much on these numbers?
ORAC Antioxidant Values of certain herbs and foods
Please note that different labs may measure these ORAC values differently and each batch of an herb, fruit, or vegetable could have a slightly or moderately different ORAC value based on ripeness, soil, season it is grown, and other factors. The ORAC values listed below are approximations. Do not base your decision to buy or take supplements purely on ORAC value. There are many other factors to consider regarding the benefits or side effects of the various compounds within herbs.
Orac Value per 100 grams
Cacao beans, Cocoa powder and dark chocolate have very high ORAC values
Blueberries 8700
Raspberries 5300
Cranberry 5200
Cherries 4700
Walnuts 3400
Prunes 3200
Milk Chocolate 1700
Almonds 1300
Raisins 1200
Mangosteen - as of June 2007, we have not seen any independent studies to determine its ORAC value. You can purchase Mangosteen.
Tea - Decaffeinated teas have an ORAC value about 500 to 800 while regular tea has an ORAC value of 700 to 1600.
Is ORAC Value that important?
As consumers hear more about the concept of ORAC value, they may give more importance to this value than perhaps justified. There is some reason to place less importance on ORAC values for these reasons: There is no industry standard for measuring ORAC values; marketers may overinflate the ORAC value of their supplements (and this could happen more often than consumers think. Don't take the word of the supplements sellers as gospel; different growing and harvesting conditions, including the season and temperature, influence the ORAC value of a particular plant by as much as fourfold: ORAC value can be influenced by how the plant material is dealt with, for instance cooking, freezing, and storage.
Simple assays including the oxygen radical absorbance capacity and DPPH (2, 2'-diphenyl-l-picrylhydrazyl) were designed to measure an individual antioxidant's free radical scavenging capacity. Food manufacturers sometimes include the results of these tests on labels, implying that because of the presence of antioxidant compounds, foods themselves have higher antioxidant capacity. These antioxidant measurements do not necessarily predict how a food or product will react in the human body, or whether it will maintain antioxidant benefits when ingested.
Q. I read your article about orac values and was a bit confused. could you give me the orac values of those products in terms of trolox equivalents per g instead of per serving so i can actually compare them? the serving size is so arbitrary sometimes. what i am looking for is a good comparison of supplements out there: mangosteen, goji, purple corn, bilberry, elderberry, blueberry, grape seed extract, green tea extract, etc. if i know their orac values i may be able to balance my intake better.
A. There are many beneficial substances in plants and herbs that have no relation to their ORAC value. It is simplistic to think one can know the ideal diet or supplement use by ORAC value alone. Many herbs, in addition to their antioxidant properties, have an influence on other aspects of health, for better or worse. For instance, goji berries have a high antioxidant value, but if too high a dose is taken of the supplement, it could cause alertness and shallow sleep. By preventing deep sleep, high doses of goji could actually be harmful. Another example is cocoa. The high amounts of caffeine or theobromines may cause anxiety or disturb sleep patterns and could actually worsen health when misused, or consumed in the evening. Rather than going out of one's way to add up, count, and balance ORAC values, one should focus on ingesting a wide variety of beneficial plants and herbs. Each has its one's benefit outside of its ORAC value. At this time I don't know the Trolox equivalent of the listed herbs and foods above.
Q. As you stated many times, ORAC values may be over rated, however, I would like to know if you know if an ORAC value has ever been determined for grape seed extracts and dark chocolate that has not been alkali processed?
A. I did a Medline search in July 2008 for " grape seed extract orac value " but did not find any studies. There are quite a number of ways that cacao beans are processed before they reach the dark chocolate phase, therefore it is difficult to give precise ORAC values. Furthermore, there are quite a number of different cacao tree species, and the cacao beans in their fruits would have different chemical compositions.
ORAC unit dosage recommendations
The USDA recommends an ORAC unit ingestion of about 3,000 to 5,000 units daily.
ORAC Value Research - Assay
Effect of ascorbic acid and dehydration on concentrations of total phenolics, antioxidant capacity, anthocyanins, and color in fruits.
Antioxidant capacity of vegetables, spices and dressings relevant to nutrition.
Br J Nutr. 2005 Feb;93(2):257-66.
Vegetables are the most important sources of phenolics in the Mediterranean diet. Phenolics, especially flavonoids, are suggested as being essential bioactive compounds providing health benefits. In this study, twenty-seven vegetables, fifteen aromatic herbs and some spices consumed in Central Italy (the Marches region) were studied to reveal total phenolic, flavonoid and flavanol content as well as their antioxidant capacity measured by the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) method. A comparison in terms of antioxidant capacity was made between different salads, as well as between salads to which aromatic herbs had been added. Lemon balm and marjoram at a concentration of 1.5 % w/w increased by 150 % and 200 % respectively the antioxidant capacity of a salad portion. A 200 g portion of a salad enriched with marjoram corresponded to an intake of 200 (SD 10) mg phenolics and 4000 (SD 300) ORAC units (micromol Trolox equivalents). Olive oils and wine or apple vinegars were the salad dressings that provided the highest increase in antioxidant capacity. Among the spices tested, cumin and fresh ginger made the most significant contribution to the antioxidant capacity. The results are useful in surveying the antioxidant parameters of vegetables, herbs and spices produced and consumed in our geographical area as well as in quantifying the daily intake of phenolics and ORAC units. The results can be used in public health campaigns to stimulate the consumption of vegetables able to provide significant health protection in order to prevent chronic diseases.
ORAC value emails, oxygen radical absorbance capacity
Q. What are the glycemic index and the ORAC value of mangosteen juice?
A. We don't know about the glycemic index. Many of the mangosteen juices on the market have other fruit juices mixed with the mangosteen. We have not seen any good studies on the ORAC value of mangosteen by independent laboratories. ORAC value is only a minor part of the overall value of a supplement.
Q. Hello, thank you so much for your website that is very resourceful... and it feels like you really want to help and educate and not only sell, sell, sell. Which fruit juice is more powerful with regards to overall health benefit and it's antioxident level, the Mangosteen or the Acai Berry. The orac scores indicate that 1 gram of Acai berry is 3800 orac value and the Mangosteen is 17,000 orac value, but I do not know what amount of Mangosteen they used to come up with that value. Do you know which fruit contains higher antioxident level?
A. Although people seem to focus on ORAC values, there are many other substances in herbs and plants that have beneficial effects. I prefer alternating the use of different herbs and not to rely on just one. For instance, one can have several different good herbal supplements, and each day take a different one. Some of the ones that come to mind include acai berry, cocoa, curcumin, goji berry, graviola, green tea extract, mangosteen, and pomegranate. This way benefits from the various herbs can be taken advantage of and the body is exposed to a variety of helpful substances without overdosing. We searched Medline for " ORAC value mangosteen "and could not find any such information regarding the testing of mangosteen. Perhaps there are such studies and if there are, we would appreciate someone pointing it out to us.
Q. How much total orac value should one ingest a day from supplements?
A. The answer to this is not known. The ideal total orac value obtained each day is very difficult to assess and not practical. Rather than focusing on orac value, and counting the numbers, one should rather focus on ingesting a wide range of fruits and vegetables in their diet.
Q. Respected Dr, Sahelian, I am a regular reader of your articles and research papers. How one can prove the increased ORAC Value after consumption of Antioxidants in a very simple way? Is there any way to prove this rather than routine and complicated blood chemistry studies?
A. I am not aware of any clear way to tell except through blood chemistry tests that are not commonly available at doctors' office and require the sample to be send to special labs testing for levels of several antioxidant systems. This is not practical and necessary. One should rather focus on eating a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits.
Q. I am a Food Scientist working independently in the food industry. I am interested in building a product that takes advantage of ORAC and cocoa. I have been doing some research, have read some literature but I am somewhat confused about the ORAC values of cocoa vs. dark chocolate. Therefore, my question is: How can dark chocolate (which is any where from 60% to 80% cocoa) have an ORAC value higher than cocoa (which is 100% cocoa)?
A. Cacao bean is the source of cocoa, chocolate, and cocoa butter. Cocoa is the dried and partially fermented fatty seed of the cacao bean from which chocolate is made. Cocoa can often also refer to cocoa powder, the dry powder made by grinding cocoa seeds and removing the cocoa butter from the dark, bitter cocoa solids; or it may refer to the combination of both cocoa powder and cocoa butter. The results of various ORAC values regarding dark chocolate and cocoa may depend on how the dark chocolate was made or how the cocoa powder was processed to make it cocoa powder. Different products and different labs may come up with different ORAC values.
Q. I am very interested in routinely measuring / tracking my blood antioxidant level. What are your thoughts on the value of this?
A. I do not seen any clinical value in knowing one's antioxidant status through blood studies.
Q. Regarding the above question and answer. I'm confused. If the ORAC value is the key to measure the antioxidant effectiveness of any given food (e.g. acai berry), then I would have thought that measuring antioxidant values thru blood testing would be the final and conclusive way to determine which food is the more beneficial. After all, what really matters to achieve optimal health is not how high is the ORAC value is before consuming the food, but what is the antioxidant status in the blood after being digested. Can you please explain?
A. There are hundreds of blood, urine, and other lab tests one can do and spend thousands and tens of thousands doing so. Before taking any test, one should reflect on how they lifestyle habits, medication use, or supplement intake will change as a result of the test. If a person is doing their best already and eating a wide range of foods and fresh vegetables and fruits, how will knowing one's blood antioxidant levels on any particular day change a person's eating habits? It is possible that the results of the testing on one day may be different a week later depending on one's diet that week. Also, it is possible that a certain food or supplement may have a high ORAC value, but eating too much of the food or supplement could cause side effects. For instance, goji berries have a high antioxidant benefits, but eating too many or taking a high dose of goji berry supplements could cause insomnia which leads to poorer health. Xanthones in mangosteen have a high ORAC value, but we don't know what other effects, good or bad, they have on tissues and organs. Therefore I do not think, with the limited medical resources and funds most people have, and most countries have, it is worthwhile to spend money on checking blood levels of antioxidants. I think people are getting too many tests without considering the fact that their health or overall longevity is not likely to change much as a result of taking these tests.
Q. I am not interested in using a mangosteen juice but in capsules mainly consisting of the pericarp. In view of this, I would appreciate to have more information on the mangosteen product provided by you, e.g. on the orac value per pill, etc. Looking at some of the products available on the market I was struck by the exceptional high orac value attributed to a product which, according to ayurceutics, would have been obtained though an extraction process with water and alcohol. Since xanthones are not well soluble in water. I have been wondering whether the high orac value of 2150 would be completely due to the products derived from the pericarp.
A. We have not done ORAC values on our mangosteen product. We think ORAC values are overrated and do not give a true picture of the benefits of a product. Xanthones act in a variety of ways besides antioxidants. The are anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, etc. Relying mostly on antioxidant values misses the overall influence of these substances on the organs and tissues of the body.
I'm confused. If the ORAC value is the key to measure the antioxidant effectiveness of any given food (e.g. acai berry), then I would have thought that measuring antioxidant values thru blood testing would be the final and conclusive way to determine which food is the more beneficial. After all, what really matters to achieve optimal health is not how high is the ORAC value is before consuming the food, but what is the antioxidant status in the blood after being digested. Can you please explain?
There are hundreds of blood, urine, and other lab tests one can do and spend thousands and tens of thousands doing so. Before taking any test, one should reflect on how they lifestyle habits, medication use, or supplement intake will change as a result of the test. If a person is doing their best already and eating a wide range of foods and fresh vegetables and fruits, how will knowing one's blood antioxidant levels on any particular day change a person's eating habits? It is possible that the results of the testing on one day may be different a week later depending on one's diet that week. Also, it is possible that a certain food or supplement may have a high ORAC value, but eating too much of the food or supplement could cause side effects. For instance, goji berries have a high antioxidant benefits, but eating too many or taking a high dose of goji berry supplements could cause insomnia which leads to poorer health. Xanthones in mangosteen have a high ORAC value, but we don't know what other effects, good or bad, they have on tissues and organs. Therefore I do not think, with the limited medical resources and funds most people have, and most countries have, it is worthwhile to spend money on checking blood levels of antioxidants. I think people are getting too many tests without considering the fact that their health or overall longevity is not likely to change much as a result of taking these tests.
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Studies at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston suggest that consuming fruits and vegetables with a high-ORAC value may help slow the aging process in both body and brain. ORAC--short for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity--measures the ability of foods, blood plasma, and just about any substance to subdue oxygen free radicals in the test tube.
Early evidence indicates that this antioxidant activity translates to animals, protecting cells and their components from oxidative damage. Getting plenty of the foods with a high-ORAC activity, such as spinach, strawberries, and blueberries, has so far:
- raised the antioxidant power of human blood,
- prevented some loss of long-term memory and learning ability in middle-aged rats,
- maintained the ability of brain cells in middle-aged rats to respond to a chemical stimulus, and
- protected rats' tiny blood vessels—capillaries—against oxygen damage.
These results have prompted Ronald L. Prior to suggest that "the ORAC measure may help define the dietary conditions needed to prevent tissue damage."
Prior is coordinating this research with Guohua (Howard) Cao, James Joseph, and Barbara Shukitt-Hale at the Boston center.
Science has long held that damage by oxygen free radicals is behind many of the maladies that come with aging, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. There's firm evidence that a high intake of fruits and vegetables reduces risk of cancer and that a low intake raises risk. And recent evidence suggests that diminished brain function associated with aging and disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases may be due to increased vulnerability to free radicals, says Joseph, a neuroscientist.
Such evidence has spurred skyrocketing sales of antioxidant vitamin supplements in recent years.
But several large trials testing individual antioxidant vitamins have had mixed results. "It may be that combinations of nutrients found in foods have greater protective effects than each nutrient taken alone," says Cao, a chemist and medical doctor.
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Neuroscientist Jim Joseph and behavioral psychologist Barbara Shukitt-Hale estimate the memory capacity of test rats required to swim to a submerged platform in a pool. Software quantifies their performance by tracking swimming patterns.
(K8351-1)
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For example, foods contain more than 4,000 flavonoids. These constitute a major class of dietary antioxidants and appear to be responsible for a large part of the protective power of fruits and vegetables, Cao says.
By the year 2050, nearly one-third of the U.S. population is expected to be over age 65. If further research supports these early findings, millions of aging people may be able to guard against diseases or dementia simply by adding high-ORAC foods to their diets. This could save much suffering, as well as reduce the staggering cost of treating and caring for the elderly.
Cao developed the ORAC test while he was a visiting scientist at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Maryland. After joining Prior's group 5 years ago, the researchers assayed commonly eaten fruits, vegetables, and fruit juices with ORAC. [See " Plant Pigments Paint a Rainbow of Antioxidants," Agricultural Research, November 1996, pp. 4-8.] "The ORAC value covers all the antioxidants in foods," says Cao. "You cannot easily measure each antioxidant separately," he adds. "But you can use the ORAC assay to identify which phytonutrients are the important antioxidants."
The researchers have been testing whether antioxidants other than vitamins are absorbed into the blood and protect the cells. And the results look promising.
Its in the Blood
Several laboratories have reported that people can absorb individual flavonoids thought to have protective powers. Prior and Cao now have good evidence that food antioxidants not only are absorbed, they boost the antioxidant power of the blood.
In an earlier study at the Boston center, 36 men and women ranging in age from 20 to 80 had doubled their fruit and vegetable intake. According to the participants' responses on a food frequency questionnaire, they averaged about five servings of fruits and vegetables daily during the year before the study. That intake was doubled to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables daily during the study.
To estimate ORAC intakes for the participants, the two researchers matched the questionnaire and the diet data with their own antioxidant values for each fruit and vegetable. Before the study, says Prior, the participants averaged 1,670 ORAC units daily. Increasing their fruit and vegetable intake to 10 a day raised the ORAC intake to between 3,300 and 3,500 ORAC units—or about twice the previous antioxidant capacity.
Based on the participants' blood samples, the antioxidants were absorbed. The ORAC value of blood plasma increased between 13 and 15 percent on the experimental diet. This supports results of a preliminary study in which Prior and Cao saw a 10- to 25-percent rise in serum ORAC after eight women ate test meals containing high-ORAC foods, red wine, or vitamin C. They tested red wine because it has a high ORAC value—higher than white wine—and has been associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
Ten ounces of fresh spinach produced the biggest rise in the women's blood antioxidant scores—even greater than was caused by 1,250 milligrams of vitamin C. An 8-ounce serving of strawberries was less effective than vitamin C but a little more effective than 9.6 ounces of red wine.
Prior says the increase in plasma ORAC can't be fully explained by increases in plasma levels of vitamin C, vitamin E, or carotenoids, so the body must be absorbing other components in these fruits and vegetables. The antioxidant capacity of the blood seems to be tightly regulated, he says. Still, "a significant increase of 15 to 20 percent is possible by increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables, particularly those high in antioxidant capacity."
The ORAC values of fruits and vegetables cover such a broad range, he adds, "you can pick seven with low values and get only about 1,300 ORAC units. Or, you can eat seven with high values and reach 6,000 ORAC units or more. One cup of blueberries alone supplies 3,200 ORAC units."
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Fruits with high oxygen radical absorbance capacity are freeze-dried by technician John McEwen for feeding in experimental fat diets.
(K8354-1)
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Based on the evidence so far, Prior and Cao suggest that daily intake be increased to between 3,000 and 5,000 ORAC units to have a significant impact on plasma and tissue antioxidant capacity.
Rats High on ORAC
Rat studies are yielding even more support for high-ORAC diets. The animals live only about 2 1/2 years total, so it's possible to follow the effects of high-ORAC foods on the aging process.
Joseph and Shukitt-Hale have been testing extracts of strawberry and spinach, along with vitamin E, in the rodents. And some of their results wouldn't surprise Popeye. A daily dose of spinach extract prevented some loss of long-term memory and learning ability normally experienced by middle-aged rats. And spinach was the most potent in protecting different types of nerve cells in various parts of the brain against the effects of aging.
The researchers started 6-month-old rats on four feeding regimens. Two groups got diets fortified with either strawberry or spinach extract, one ate the diet containing an extra 500 international units of vitamin E, while a fourth got the unfortified diet. Shukitt-Hale, a behavioral psychologist, had already put a group of rats through their paces to determine when they begin to falter in memory and motor function. She says the animals start to lose motor function around 12 months and memory at 15 months; the latter is equivalent to a 45- to 50-year-old human.
When the study rats reached 15 months, she had them doing gymnastics—such as walking on rods and planks and trying to stay upright on a rotating rod—all tests of motor function. She also had these excellent swimmers paddle around a deep pool until, using visual cues, they found a submerged platform on which they could rest. With this test, she measures changes in long- and short-term memory.
"None of the diets prevented motor loss," says Shukitt-Hale. The 15-month-old rats performed like middle-aged animals whether they got the extra antioxidants or not. But the spinach-fed rats had significantly better long-term memory than the animals getting the control diet or the strawberry-fortified diet. They remembered how to find the hidden platform better over time, she says, showing they retained more of their learning ability. The vitamin E-fed rats were somewhat less protected against memory loss than the spinach group.
"That's significant," she notes. "It's really difficult to effect a change in behavior."
Where Aging May Reside
Joseph looks for age-related changes in brain cell function, focusing on an area of the brain that controls both motor and cognitive function—the neostriatum. As people and animals age, the cells become sluggish in responding to chemical stimulation, he says. For 15-month-old rats, the striatal cells have lost 40 percent of their ability to respond to such signals.
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To better understand cellular activity within the brain, technician Derek Fisher views fluorescent images of calcium in cells that are affected by oxidative stress. The calcium binds to a fluorescent dye that the imaging system can measure.
(K8350-1)
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Not so in the animals whose diets were fortified with spinach or strawberry extracts or vitamin E. Their striatal cells performed significantly better than those of rats on the control diet—especially the rats getting the spinach extract. That group scored twice as high as the control animals in Joseph's test.
The spinach group also scored best among the fortified diets in a test of nerve cells in the cerebellum, a part of the brain that maintains balance and coordination. The test was done by Paula Bickford, a collaborating pharmacologist with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver.
Why spinach is more effective than strawberries is still a mystery. The researchers conjecture that it may be due to specific phytonutrients or a specific combination of them in the greens. While this research is still in its infancy, says Joseph, "the findings, so far, suggest that nutritional intervention with fruits and vegetables may play an important role in preventing the long-term effects of oxidative stress on brain function."
Prior and Cao also have early evidence that these foods protect other tissues. Subjecting rats to pure oxygen for 2 days normally damages cells lining the tiniest blood vessels, or capillaries, causing them to become leaky.
As a result, fluid accumulates in the rats' pleural cavity—the space surrounding the lungs. But that was minimized when the animals were fed blueberry extract for 6 weeks before the oxygen stress. Of all the fruits and vegetables tested with ORAC, blueberries are one of highest in antioxidant capacity.
In human terms, says Prior, the animals got the equivalent of 3,000 ORAC units. "If we can show some relationship between ORAC intake and health outcome in people, I think we may reach a point where the ORAC value will become a new standard for good antioxidant protection." —By Judy McBride, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff. "Can Foods Forestall Aging?" was published in the February 1999 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.
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