With over 75% of the world’s total population reeling under obesity, the demand for acai berry is on the rise. One of the main reasons why acai berry is preferred over other weight loss products is because it has proven to be the most effective means of reducing body fat. Talking cue from the above statement, let us now throw some light on the advantages of using the miraculous acai berries drink on a regular basis.

Acai Berry Is A Natural Product

The very first advantage of using acai berry is that it is a natural ingredient. In fact, you can buy acai berry from the open market as it is a fruit. Found deep in the Amazon forests, the acai berry fruit is considered a natural product and is therefore free from any harmful side effects. As compared to other fat reducing pills and related “over the counter” medications, acai berries are perhaps the most sought after ingredients as they are free from any harmful side effects. Hence, anyone can use it, regardless of his/her age or ailment.

It Is A Fast Acting Formula

The second biggest advantage of using an acai berry formula for loosing weight is the speed in which it works. In simple words, the acai berries are blessed with a special ingredient which slice your body fat. It is much the same way as a knife slices through a ripe tomato. While most fat loss products take weeks and even months to show their effect, the wonder berries from acai slice your fat the moment they enter your body. Hence, people have been known to loose as much as 34 pounds in a single month. It is undoubtedly a miracle formula.

It Is Affordable In Nature

The third advantage of acai berries is that it is an inexpensive form of shedding excessive fat. If in case you are a working mother who does not have extra money to spare, the berries are the best solution to resolve your weighty issues. At the same time, you can hope to buy acai berry without burning a hole in your pocket. It is affordable, long lasting, fast in action and inexpensive. In simple words, it is a perfect solution to your weight related problems.

It Can Be Used On A Daily Basis

The acai berry formula was formulated by a team of expert nutritionists who worked night and day in trying to device a wonder drink through which you could hope to reduce your body fat in a drastic manner. Hence, even though you may have achieved your goals in terms of weight loss, you can always go ahead and continue to use this drink on a daily basis. The benefit of this drink is that if you continue to use it on a regular basis, you can hope to maintain your lost weight for ever. In a nutshell, the berries from acai are like any other fruit and can be used as a part of your daily food. This, I believe, is the easiest and the most effective way of staying in shape throughout your life.

It Has Been Advocated By Dr. Oz

One of the main reasons why Dr. Oz recommended the usage of acai berries was because he had himself administered this magical formula in curing numerous weight loss enthusiasts. At the same time, Oprah Winfrey too advocated the cause to buy acai berry and insisted that it had helped millions of people the world over in loosing weight the natural way

Did you know? Biologically, there are two ways for every cell in your body to die. There is a good way and a bad way. The good way is called: Apoptosis and the bad way is called Necrosis.

Apoptosis is the way you want it to happen. Apoptosis is the process whereby an ageing cell signals a white blood cell to come and destroy it thoroughly. The result of this is that there is no left over part of the cell that can do damage to other cells.

Necrosis on the other hand is when the dying off of a cell happens unassisted by a white blood cell. The cell breaks off and becomes a free radical. The electrons from this dying cell fall off into other cells creating havoc and causing everything we know as aging, including non-genetic diseases.

Antioxidants and its affect on aging

The result is that the body ages, cancer can develop, hear disases, arthritis, tumours, high blood pressure etc. So theoretically if you stop the process from taking place in your body then you stop the aging process. The only defences we have had so far against necrosis are the antioxidants that appear in nature. These antioxidants are natural compounds that soak up the extra cell parts or free radicals left over from Necrosis, resulting in slower aging and less illness. These antioxidants however have up to now been found only in small concentrations in most foods until the discovery of the Acai Berry.

The first Acai Berry tests

Dr Alexander Shauss, one of the worlds foremost Nutrition Scientists drinks several servings of Acai juice on a daily basis. Dr Alexander Shauss was the first person to run ORAC Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity) assay on Acai and he was so surprised by the results that he asked a few other well known nutritional scientists to do tests on properties of this the berry. The tests found that the Acai berry was the most concentrated source of antioxidants by far!

Are all Acai Berry Products made equal?

Unfortunately the Acai berry is also very fragile, and once picked, it rapidly loses its antioxidant qualities in as little as 24 hours after having been picked, which makes it extremely difficult to find it in fresh form any place other than the Amazon. This has given rise to many fraudsters trying to sell people a product that was not the real thing and therefore would not have the same extreme qualities of the real Acai Berry.

The Acai Berry and Cancer

Since the discovery of the Acai Berry was not too long ago, there have not been too many trials done on it yet. However, a group of scientists at the University of Florida did some tests on it by putting some Acai Berry extracts into a petri dish that was filled with leukemia cancer cells.

The extract from the berry triggered a self-destruct response in up to 86% of the cancer cells. More studies are being done at the moment and it has already been said that a possible cure for cancer with Acai Berry looks very promising. If the berry extract could stop the necrosis, it would be able to prevent and destroy cancer.

This is just one of the many studies that are going on at the moment. In the future there could be possible cures for heart disease by preventing necrosis of the heart cells with the Acai Berry extract, and it could possibly also prevent and destroy Alzheimers Disease.

Acai Berry consumption prevents bad cholesterol

However, antioxidants are not the only amazing property of the Acai Berry. It contains plant sterols that can keep cholesterol from being digested which is good news for high cholesterol sufferers. The list goes on and on. The berry’s low glycemic index improves glucose and lipid levels which again, stops necrosis, and prevents and destroys diabetes.

Acai helps restore stomach health and repair ulcers

The berry is also high in fiber, which aids in digestion while allowing the antioxidants to heal the digestive tract. Ulcers which are caused by bacteria can be prevented and destroyed. The antibacterial properties of the berry destroys bacterial infection and rebuild the intestines with its antioxidant properties.

Acai consumption relieves Astma

It even offers relief to Astma sufferers with the high vitamin c content that is present in the berry, resulting in fewer asthma attacks.

Acai Berry products can keep you young

Even aging can be slowed down by eating high amounts of this berry as the high content of antioxidants will result in preventing necrosis in the body. Almost all non-genetic diseases can be prevented or cured by the use of the Acai Berry. It helps to greatly boost the immune system and thereby preventing possible diseases from taking hold in the body. This is only made possible by the super concentration of antioxidants found in the Acai Berry.

In the Amazon Forest of Brazil where the natives are eating 3 servings a day of this berry, they look very young and they have none of the health problems that plague that average human being. No cancer, no heart disease, no strokes, even wrinkles appear less! Dr Shaus is by no means the only doctor that highly endorses the use of the Acai Berry, there are many other doctors that realise its potential to heal disease.

One of the newly discovered berry “stars” of antioxidant plants is the acai (“ah-sigh-ee”) palm berry (Euterpe oleracea Mart.) that comes from the tropical regions of Central and South America.
The genus is named after the muse Euterpe of Greek mythology and the major plant family is Arecaceae. The vernacular name is sometimes called Assai Palm.

Acai is well-known in the exotic functional food industry as a rich tasting, darkly pigmented (deep blue-purple) fruit whose delicious juice is either consumed from bottles or combined with yogurt and other health foods to create smoothies.

Where do acai palms grow and what are the characteristics of the berries?

According to Wikipedia, acai is a genus of 25-30 palm species native to tropical Central and South America, from Belize to Brazil and Peru. It grows mainly along rivers, in floodplains and swamps. They are tall, slender, attractive palms that grow 15-30 m tall, with pinnate leaves up to 3 m long. The fruit is a small, round, black-purple berry similar in size to a grape. They are produced in branched clusters of 700-900 fruits that must be picked by hand. Though its appearance is similar to that of a grape, the acai has a smaller amount of pulp and a single large seed about 7–10 mm in diameter.

What is it about the acai that has caught the attention of consumers?

Besides its deep blue color and delectable taste (hinting of chocolate), the preliminary analysis of nutrient content shows acai as one of the tropic’s most nutritious fruits and certainly an exceptional source of antioxidant pigments.

What nutrients stand out in the acai berry?

Although the data has not been published or independently verified, the early research on acai shows it is rich in vitamins A, B and C, minerals (particularly iron and calcium), dietary fiber and proteins. It also contains an omega-3 fatty acid, a beta-sitosterol (a phytosterol that inhibits cholesterol formation in humans) and essential amino acids. Oleic acid, an omega-9 fatty acid found in virgin olive oil, is especially rich in the acai.

What about the antioxidant strength of acai?

A manufacturer of acai products states on its website that acai has three times the antioxidant strength of blueberries and eight times that of strawberries. The likely source of such unusual antioxidant power would come from the dark blue pigments found in acai berry skin – the large class of flavonoids called anthocyanins and particularly from two (cyanidin-3-glucoside and cyanidin-3-rutinoside), which are the main pigments isolated from acai.

What does medical research say about the health properties of acai?

As a relatively new discovery, acai has appeared in the online database of the US National Library of Medicine—PubMed—only since 2004. Since then, just five reports are listed (June 2006).

Three studies analyzed the antioxidant properties of acai, showing its powerful effects against specific oxidizing agents like peroxyl radicals and peroxynitrite. One interesting finding was that the total antioxidant capacity of acai could be accounted in just 10% of the identified anthocyanins. This finding indicates that acai is loaded with other, yet unidentified, antioxidant phytochemicals.

In 2006, a study performed at the University of Florida showed that acai antioxidants could induce more rapid death (apoptosis) of leukemia cells in vitro. This preliminary research indicates a possible anti-cancer effect of anthocyanins and other pigments, as shown for North American dark berries like the blueberry and black raspberry.

With research beginning to show remarkable benefits of acai, why not introduce this tasty berry into your diet?