The Acai palm tree is a limb of the genus Euterpe, which includes 7 species of palms local to tropical Belize south to Brazil and Peru, growing mostly in floodplains and swamps.
The intense pigmentation of the Acai berry has led to several tentative studies of its anthocyanins, a cluster of polyphenols that give the dark color to the Acai berries, other fruits and vegetables and are high in antioxidant score under active study for possible health benefits. A fresh study using a uniform freeze-dried Acai berry fruit pulp and skin powder found the overall Anthocyanin levels to be 319 mg per 100 grams (Schauss et al., 2006a). Cyandin 3-glucoside and Cyanidin 3-rutinoside are key Acai berry anthocyanins.
Twelve other flavonoids-like elements were additionally found in the Schauss et al. 2006 a research, including homoorientin, orientin, taxifolin deoxyhexose, isovitexin and scoparin, as well as numerous unknown flavonoids. Proanthocyanidins, another set of polyphenolic compounds rich in antioxidant value, summed 1,289 mg per 100 grams of the freeze-dried Acai berry pulp or Acai berry powder, with a profile similar to that of blueberries. Resveratrol was also found to be present in the Acai berry in this study, though at low levels of 1.1 microgram per gram.
Many studies have measured the antioxidant potency of the Acai berry. Sorry to say, but the sources of the Acai berry and the preparations of the Acai berry extracts e.g., Acai berry juice, Acai powder and others reporting the results varying. A latest report using a standardized ORAC analysis on a freeze-dried Acai berry powder found that this Acai berry powder showed a high antioxidant effect against peroxyl radical (1027 micromole TE/g). This is something like 10 times more than low bush blueberry or cranberry on a dry weight basis (Wu, 2004). The ORAC value for the freeze-dried Acai berry powder was considerably higher than when other techniques of drying the Acai berry fruit were tested. Other powders with ORAC values this high consist of cinnamon (2675 micromole TE/g), cloves (3144 micromole TE/g), turmeric (2001 micromole TE/g) and dried oregano (1593 micromole TE/g).
The freeze-dried Acai berry powder also showed very high activity against superoxide, with a SOD test level of 1614 units/g. Superoxide is believed to be the first producer of other more powerful reactive oxygen species, and thus defense against it is very important as a first line of protection for the body. Moreover, antioxidant molecules from the freeze-dried Acai berry powder were shown to really enter freshly obtained human neutrophils and slow down oxidation induced by hydrogen peroxide, even at very low concentrations of the Acai berry powder including 0.1 part per trillion. A previous story using total oxygen scavenging ability test also found that Acai berry has tremendously high antioxidant effects against peroxyl or free radical, as well as a high competency against peroxynitrite, and a fair capacity against hydroxyl radical when compared with other fruit and vegetable juices.
Only 10% of the Acai berry’s high antioxidant results could be explained by its Anthocyanin substance indicating that other polyphenols throw in most of the antioxidant activity in the Acai berry fruit. Similarly found that that percentage of the hydrophilic ORAC levels to the total phenolics in the freeze-dried Acai berry powder was 50, a higher value than the typical fruit and vegetable ratio of 10[reference required].
They also utilized the “Total Antioxidant” or TAO test to distinguish the “fast-acting” (measured at 30 seconds) and “slow-acting” (measured at 30 minutes) antioxidant levels present in freeze-dried Acai berry powder. The Acai berry powder was found to have a higher “slow-acting” antioxidant constituents, suggesting a more persistent antioxidant effect compared to “fast-acting” components.
The Antioxidant values of the seeds of the Acai berry fruit have also been reported. In the same way to the Acai berries, the antioxidant power of the Acai berry seeds was strongest against peroxyl radicals, at a concentration in the same order of scale as the Acai berries. The Acai berry fruit seeds had a more powerful antioxidant effect than the Acai berries for peroxynitrite and hydroxyl radicals, although still less than its effects against peroxy radical. The outcomes of this study were not linear based on the concentration of the Acai seeds that were used. The authors propose the future use of the Acai seeds (a by-product of juice making) for antioxidant benefits such as extending the shelf-life of the Acai berry.