… 16,450 units per daily serving (50 grams) - three times as powerful as pomegranate juice (ORAC of 5,250) and almost two times more powerful than Acai berry juice (ORAC of 9,200). It is over ten times more potent than juice made from Noni berries (ORAC of 856), Goji berries (ORAC of 706), and blueberries (ORAC of 1,600).
A brief explanation of ORAC:
ORAC is an acronym for Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity - basically, how well a food or supplement performs as an antioxidant. Foods and nutrients with a higher ORAC score are believed to be more effective at eliminating oxygen free radicals in the body, promoting improved health and function of the body.
So, EpiGaia’s high ORAC value - higher than several other nutrition/health drinks and juices - looks pretty impressive. One possible explanation comes from Guohua (Howard) Cao, a physician and chemist who developed the ORAC assay: “It may be that combinations of nutrients found in foods have greater protective effects than each nutrient taken alone.”
If you’d like to read the press release, it’s available here. For more information about EpiGaia, be sure to visit the EpiGaia website and download the free report, “Epigenetic Nutrition: Attaining Natural Good Health through Ancestral Sourced Whole Foods.”
Scientific research confirming and clarifying the importance of epigenetics in biology - specifically, the passing on of traits to offspring - just keeps coming. A recent study published in The Quarterly Review of Biology (University of Chicago) highlighted over 100 examples of specific animal traits passed to offspring via non-DNA inheritance.
A Current.com post includes selected examples from the study, as well as commentary on the conclusions. Here are a few examples:
Fruit flies exposed to certain chemicals transmit changes—bristly outgrowths on their eyes—down at least 13 generations.
Exposing a pregnant rat to a chemical that alters reproductive hormones leads to generations of sick offspring.
People malnourished in adolescence transmit higher rates of heart disease and diabetes to their children and grandchildren.
In these and 97 other cases the changes in subsequent generations were not from changes in DNA but from epigenetics.
According to the Current.com post, the biggest implication of this new research is that “All the stuff we’re synthesizing and creating from plastics to nanomaterials is going to live in our bodies and take its toll down the generations for a long, long time.”
The “glass-half-full’ flipside to this opinion is epigenetic nutrition: we can identify nutrients and specific foods, used by our ancestors, that meet the needs of our present-day bodies.
Back on May 2, we published a post titled “Swine Flu Concerns: Boost Immunity with Genetic Nutrition.” That post discussed how strengthening the immune system through proper nutrition could help people stay more healthy. As it turns out, the CDC has conducted tests that suggest people age 60 and over have increased immunity to the H1N1 virus.
According to a story by the Associated Press today, the new H1N1 virus seems to affect the young at a much higher rate than the elderly - which is in direct contrast to common seasonal flus, that have a much more profound effect on the very old.
Several theories have been presented as to why the new H1N1 seems to not affect the elderly as much. The most common is that flu viruses prior to 1957 affected patients’ immune systems in a similar way to H1N1, which could account for the apparently-increased immunity among the elderly. But scientists and doctors urge older people to “take the same precautions as everyone else.”
Scientists think it’s because older people have been exposed to other viruses in the past that are more similar to swine flu than more recent seasonal flus.
But the results come from complicated lab work and calculations, and it’s not yet clear how safe older people actually are from the new infection, federal officials said.
“We can’t say,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So older people are advised to take the same precautions as their children and grandchildren.
The LiveScience site has a fantastic overview of epigenetics that was posted about three weeks ago. Epigenetics is a relatively new area of scientific study that has come into focus as a result of the human genome project. As scientists mapped out the genome, they began to see that genes by themselves are not entirely responsible for the growth and development of our bodies. It is the epigenome that helps determine whether a given cell will become part of a big toe, or part of a lung, or what color a person’s eyes will be.
The epigenome doesn’t just affect the body while in the womb, though. According to Liang Liu, a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who was quoted in the article, “food, pollution, toxic chemicals (such as those found in hard clear plastics), drugs, stress, even exercise and social interaction can all affect the epigenome and alter its attitude towards DNA.”
A key factor that can influence the epigenome and its effect on our genes is food and proper nutrition. In the article, Randy Jirtle, an epigenetics research pioneer at Duke University in North Carolina, makes this point clear:
Similarly, healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices can positively sway gene expression. “Food is truly medicine when you are talking about epigenetic changes,” Jirtle said…
The epigenome’s malleability highlights the power we can have over the health of ourselves and our children, said Jirtle.
Check out the article here for a great overview of epigenetics, and some of the great health benefits associated with this emerging science.
Although the government is working on a vaccination for the current swine flu, it may take up to six months to produce and may only partially reduce the risk of contracting the virus.
Strengthen Your Immune System
Another way to stay generally healthy is by strengthening your immune system. As well as paying attention to your diet and lifestyle, you can also turn to supplements that help support a strong immune system. We recommend natural, whole food nutrient formulas that have ingredients that specifically help with stress and immune function (containing “Hardship Plants”).
“Hardship Plants” Can Boost Immunity
A recurring characteristic of several components in EpiGaia® is the ability to withstand hardship. Studies have shown that many of these ingredients can lead to stronger immune systems and guard against disease. Examples include:
Resveratrol is produced in grape skin in response to environmental challenge.
Oleuropein makes the olive plant robust and resistant to attack.
Gingko Biloba is the oldest known living tree having withstood the ice age.
Several components grow in extreme, harsh climates.
There are more than 10 adaptogen components. Adaptogens enhance the body and mind’s capacity to adapt optimally, accurately and with endurance, to stress.
Epigenetic Nutrition: Attaining Natural Good Health through Ancestral Sourced Whole Foods
In This Informative Report, Learn:
Why your health 'blueprint' is stored in your genes
Why certain foods work well for some, but not for others
Why what your ancestors ate could be the key to your health
How to gain access to the most pure nutrients in the world
And much more
EpiGaia® will be released Summer 2009 – by entering your contact information in the form, you will receive the report as well as be the first notified when the product is released to the public.
