Is ORAC score valid or is it a scam?

BaconBits

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Apr 26, 2013
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ORAC score, the antioxidant content of food measured in a lab, is this another scam like PUFA or is it valid.

Funny like they are pushing things like goji berries and blackberries, but most spices have a lot more, like a gram of cinnamon has more than a cup of blueberries, if ORAC means anything. Chris Masterjohn even said that high ORAC foods coud be actually toxic. What does Ray Peat think about it.
 

kiran

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Aug 9, 2012
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ORAC(Oxygen radical absorbance capacity) is a measure of antioxidant capacity that has questionable biological significance. We need to look at endogenous anti-oxidants rather than exogenous. For exogenous substances, we should rather look at their specific effect like OJ(Hesperitin, naringenin etc) and Guava(apigenin) have substances that inhibit aromatase etc.
 

Ben

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Nutr Cancer 1988;11(4):251-7. Cytotoxicity of extracts of spices to cultured cells. Unnikrishnan MC, Kuttan R Amala Cancer Research Centre, Kerala, India. The cytotoxicity of the extracts from eight different spices used in the Indian diet was determined using Dalton's lymphoma ascites tumor cells and human lymphocytes in vitro and Chinese Hamster Ovary cells and Vero cells in tissue culture. Alcoholic extracts of the spices were found to be more cytotoxic to these cells than their aqueous extracts. Alcoholic extracts of several spices inhibited cell growth at concentrations of 0.2-1 mg/ml in vitro and 0.12-0.3 mg/ml in tissue culture. Ginger, pippali (native to India; also called dried catkins), pepper, and garlic showed the highest activity followed by asafetida, mustard, and horse-gram (native to India). These extracts also inhibited the thymidine uptake into DNA.
This is a study RP cited in his food-junk article. Red pepper is said to be very anti-inflammatory, but I think it's because of a long-term adaptive process to it, and endogenous antioxidants are probably involved in that. I would avoid capsaicin, garlic, onion, mustard, and other spicy spices because they are obvious irritants, and probably increase histamine and serotonin as a result.
 

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