BiORACulous | Biomedx

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ORAC Research

Can Foods Forestall Aging?

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.

To determine the motor function of middle-aged test rats, behavioral psychologist Barbara Shukitt-Hale and technician George Mouzakis monitor the performance of these 15-month-olds walking a rotating rod.

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.

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.

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.

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."

d 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.

Fruits with high oxygen radical absorbance capacity are freeze-dried by technician John McEwen for feeding in experimental fat diets.

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.

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."

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.

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."

This research is part of Human Nutrition Requirements, Food Composition, and Intake, an Agricultural Research Service National Program of the USDA.

Bioraculous - The White Paper

More of the Story

Bioraculous is an amazing product - miraculous really. People can’t believe that a green drink can taste so good – or do so much - and children will actually drink it! They may be familiar with brand X green drinks that either taste like dirt, the pond out back, or like a pile of lawn clippings from the last lawn mow. Not Bioraculous.

This is a product with:

No fractionated synthetic vitamins, artificial flavors or chemical sweeteners.

No added sugars, fructose, sucralose or corn syrup.

No binders, fillers or flow additives.

No magnesium stearate, vegetable gum, titanium dioxide.

No carrageenan, MSG, yeast extracts.

No acidophilus.

No GMO.

No wheat.

No gluten.

No dairy.

Just good food that mixes into water and tastes great.

Naturally RAW, miraculously good!

If you are interested in health for yourself, your children, spouse or a parent, there are some things you might like to know about the specially chosen synergistic ingredients in Bioraculous along with some of the why that may lie behind its’ power.

At the top of the list is the ORAC content – key to the name Bi-ORAC-ulous.

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NOTE: There are no claims made for Bioraculous and it is not sold to address any specific health concern. It is simply designed to be a tasty green drink that won’t gag you and supplies great nutrition you might otherwise not be getting in your daily diet. Your body will assimilate it as it will and if good benefits result for your health, we think that is just fantastic. You will too.

The following is a very brief review of some of the nutritional ideas behind the Bioraculous recipe with a short overview of some key ingredients and what publically available research and studies have said about potential benefits. At no time can it be assumed your body will process this raw material to provide you the benefits discussed. Everything here is but a tip of a nutritional iceberg of information and you should do further research to get more of the story.

No statements made herein have been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor is any statement intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

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What’s ORAC? Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity.

This is all about certain foods ability to forestall the aging process.

Studies at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University suggest that consuming fruits and vegetables with a high-ORAC value may help slow the aging process in both the body and brain.

Key to the research is the amount of ORAC value per serving that appears to have positive effect. This is 3000 to 5000 per day. According to the studies, any more than this with any given serving goes unused due to the bloods tight regulation processes. (For a fuller review of this research, see the “USDA ORAC Research” link next to the button that brought you to this page.)

Bioraculous was formulated to hit the 5000 ORAC target. Knowing that there can be margin of error, a bit more ORAC power went into it allowing for the plus or minus 14.99% standard deviation in final results. Bioraculous tested at 6128 ORAC value per serving, and accounting for the worst case downside standard deviation in test results, you are assured of getting a minimum 5200 ORAC per serving positively meeting the high end daily target.

The power ingredients of Bioraculous

Let’s start with greens. We all know we need to eat more greens. Good greens. Greens with power - like in power nutrition. In Bioraculous you’ll find:

Spirulina,

Chlorella,

Barley Grass Juice Powder,

Alfalfa on which was dried a trace mineral complex.

All of the above contain some of the best pH factors available in food – meaning optimal minerals and cofactors for positive health. They contain large amounts of natural chlorophyll and an antioxidant enzyme called superoxide dismutase. Yes these are powerful greens.

Chlorophyll is the green pigment in plants and it is what absorbs the sun’s energy for photosynthesis. It is to plants what blood is to humans and its’ molecular makeup is similar with the exception of magnesium filling the central atom in chlorophyll vs. iron in blood.

For people, chlorophyll has been seen to have anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and wound-healing properties. Written about known benefits include:

Growth and repair of tissue,

Neutralizing pollution,

Delivering magnesium and carrying oxygen to cells,

Stimulating cells to improve oxygen supply,

Helping assimilate calcium and chelating (taking out) heavy minerals (metals).

These are just a few things in addition to being anti-atherogenic, anti-mutagenic, and anti-carcinogenic. It can help protect against toxins along with potentially reducing drug side effects.

As cooking destroys most chlorophyll in plants, it is important to get raw into the diet and Bioraculous helps to support this objective.

Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) is an enzyme with powerful free radical fighting ability. Oxygen free radicals are molecules that can damage cells. SOD is located heavily in the mitochondria which is the main cellular O2 production site. Decreased SOD activity there with consequent oxidative mutations may contribute to aging in cells and have been associated with neurodegenerative disease. Where do you find Superoxide Dismutase in food? Greens.

Trace Minerals. In the Bioraculous greens blend we also put in a pinch of natural trace minerals. Natural health clinics around the world have seen what might be called miracles occur in health with trace mineral supplementation. The consensus seems to be that we just don’t get enough from a commonly mineral deficient food supply and research seems to bear that out.

Getting a little mineral supplementation everyday is another form of health insurance - or health assurance. Minerals are the building blocks of the body, fall short and the body starts falling apart. For youngsters, mineral shortages mean they don’t build healthy bodies or brains the way they should.

Antioxidant Synergism

When formulating for our ORAC target a single potent item could have been chosen, but that would potentially eliminate the wide ranging benefits of multiple nutrients that can act in concert with each other. One review of the label shows a mix of juice and extracts from powerful and often exotic berries, fruits, vegetables, roots, spices, kelp and resveratrol – intimated by some as the beneficial health ingredient behind red wine. We’ll talk more on this later.

What does this mix provide? Phyto-nutrients with powerful polyphenolic compounds like flavonoids, flavanols, flavanones, anthocyanins, catechins, carotenoids, and others.

Oodles of research and studies exist on the positive health benefits of phyto-nutrients. In cell cultures, incredible things happen when they are introduced – inflammation lowered, fibrosis reduced, cancer cells self-destruct, oxidation and reduction damage is reduced, and cell receptivity to good things vs. bad things is heightened. But this is in the test tube.

In animal studies, other benefits become apparent. In humans, others still, or not. The “or not” in the last sentence is telling. What one thing works for some individuals, does not work for others, and what other thing works for those, is useless for someone else.

It’s being discovered that it is not just a single phyto-nutrient that is “the thing” to ageless and healthy living, but the synergism between multiple nutrients in concert with healthy bacteria in the gut!

Healthy gut bacteria takes the range of phyto-nutrients in a diet, metabolizes them, and then produces extremely beneficial agents that can be absorbed into the bloodstream offering tremendous biological activity for health.

But if healthy bacteria in the gut is in short supply, than so are the processing agents for the phyto-nutrients. Healthy life supporting bacteria are referred to as probiotics. In Bioraculous you will find a very special probiotic selection.

About Probiotics. Pro = for, biotic = life. Probiotics are the healthy, life supporting and enhancing living bacteria that inhabit the intestinal tract. They are also called the intestinal flora. The average adult has 3 to 4 pounds worth.

They have a job to perform and without them life would be impossible.

They manufacture some of the B vitamins like (B3), (B6), folic acid, and biotin.
They manufacture the milk-digesting enzyme, lactase.
They actively produce antibacterial substances which kill or deactivate hostile, disease-causing bacteria.
Some bacteria have been shown to have powerful anti-carcinogenic features which are active against certain tumors.
They improve the efficiency of the digestive tract. When they are weakened, bowel function is poor.
They effectively help to reduce high cholesterol levels.
They help protect against radiation damage and deactivate many toxic pollutants.
They help to recycle estrogen which reduces the likelihood of menopausal symptoms and osteoporosis.
Therapeutically they have been shown to be useful in treatment of acne, psoriasis, eczema, allergies, migraine, gout, rheumatic and arthritic conditions, cystitis, candidiasis, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and some forms of cancer.
The interaction between bacteria in our gut and immune system is key to protecting us from pathogens, and also to protect us (or not) from obesity and metabolic disorders (like diabetes).

Probiotics are big news these days and folks are starting to catch on to their power, also that probiotics can be affected by certain circumstances.

Good bacteria are influenced by the degree of infection by yeast and other “bad” bacteria to which the bowel can be subjected, and certain drugs, especially antibiotics, can severely upset probiotic life. (Penicillin and tetracycline will kill friendly probiotic bacteria just as efficiently as they will kill disease-causing bacteria). Steroids and hormonal drugs such as cortisone, ACTH, prednisone, and birth control pills, and exposure to other chemicals like chlorine in tap water also cause damage to healthy bowel flora.

When bad bacteria step into the places where the good bacteria should exist, problems can ensue. Bioraculous everyday gives you a probiotic fix.

It’s About Colony Forming Units of Bacteria

In some other green drinks you might note that probiotics are listed in milligram amounts only. This is a problem as the weight of the bacteria does not tell you the activity level. In 200mg of probiotics in a serving from brand X green drink, are you getting 190mg of filler and 10mg of bacteria? There is no way to know. And of that, were the bacteria dead or alive at time of manufacturing? Listing probiotics in milligram units is a way to obfuscate what should be listed as actual colony forming units put into the bottle. Listing probiotic by weight may be impressive, but the impression may be more about fooling your perceptions about what’s going on.

While Bioraculous was not designed to be a targeted probiotic formula, it has a significant CFU count to set the task at hand, which is helping you assimilate the high ORAC phytonutrients.

Look what’s here; 1 billion colony forming units of:

Longum,
Casei,
Bulgaricus,
Bifidum.

More about these in a moment, but you will note that just as important as what is in Bioraculous, is what is NOT in Bioraculous.

No Acidophilus

Yes it is true. No acidophilus in Bioraculous. The reason is twofold. It’s already in large supply in many foods like all yogurt products, but more importantly, in healthy adults acidophilus is not a significant part of normal intestinal flora anyway. Many probiotic bacteria produce lactic acid and more is not necessarily better and with Acidophilus’ potential to create the toxic form d-lactic acid, which can place great strain on the liver and immune system, it simply is not in Bioraculous.

Let’s look at what is.

Longum and B. Bifidum.

You don’t see these together every day in probiotic formulas. In the book, Minerals for the Genetic Code by Charles Walters on the work of Dr. Richard Olree, these are the two super star probiotics that make the trace element yttrium bio-available.

Yttrium is a trace element and plays a role in protein synthesis and is one of the most important as a stop termination codon where gene expression is concerned. Deficiency is strongly correlated with negative neurological developments.

Aluminum, the third most abundant mineral in the earth’s crust, is used in the makeup and design of all of earth’s bacteria except for two, Bifidobacterium Longum and Bifidobacterium Bifidum which process yttrium. With a predisposition to aluminum use by most bacteria and our use of aluminum in foods, cosmetics and cooking utensils supporting those bacteria, it is easy to see the over-development of all aluminum processing bacteria in deference to yttrium processing bacteria.

This can lead to the selective starvation of the two probiotic bacteria that process yttrium, and where there is no yttrium, there is no proper gene codon for proper gene expression, particularly where neurological events are concerned.

This is not to be underestimated in importance. Your brain and neurological system has to work for everything else to work.

Some make mention that in India there is a very low incidence of Alzheimer’s. Of note in this observation is they are also big users of yttrium-boron based turmeric - something you will also find in Bioraculous – along with the two probiotic bacteria that utilize and process the yttrium!

As an aside, the text from author Chaim T. Horowitz, Scandium and Yttrium in the Biological Process, notes that the only consequence of yttrium injection in test animals was extreme conservation of ultra minerals and a three-fold increase in their lifespan.

Beyond the yttrium connection here, B. Bifidum has been called one of the most ferocious warriors for health in the probiotic army, and B. Longum one of the most significant of all the probiotics for its wide ranging role in a myriad of areas.

Casei.

This is a beneficial microorganism that helps to promote other beneficial bacteria to grow and prevents overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria. It appears to offer great support to battle inflammatory bowel issues through downregulation of inflammation and in one study it was shown to counteract the pro-inflammatory effects of E. coli. It helps lower lactose intolerance and constipation, and on the flip side has shown positive effects for individuals suffering diarrhea. It helps improve and promote healthy digestion, and helps modulate the immune system.

Bulgaricus.

The intestinal mucosa is the barrier or lining in the gastro-intestinal tract which is the interface between the absorption of needed nutrients and the diversion of harmful microbes and toxins. It is a battlefield where symbiotic, life providing microflora assist in separating the good from the bad making the difference between you being sick or healthy. L. Bulgaricus is in the thick of the fight in the mucosa through its metabolic end-products shifting the intestinal terrain and making it inhospitable to many pathogens where they simply give up their fight to survive. It excretes natural antibiotics in this role as well as blocking pathogen adhesion sites within the mucosal layer. The ability to draw away toxins and defeat harmful bacteria along with studies showing anti-tumor qualities makes L. Bulgaricus a powerful soldier in the gut for health. It has been likened to a spore that can be stored as a seed and once digested, blooms to function in the GI tract.

The Flatulence Factor – Not here

One area of concern when selecting probiotics as a supplement, particularly for use in a super green drink such as Bioraculous, is how well does a given probiotic or a mix of probiotics do once it hits a human GI tract.

Some probiotics make people quite gassy. Next to uncomfortable, some might say it makes one socially unacceptable - unless of course you are a five year old who finds everything related to flatulence highly entertaining.

Well, you can rest assured that we have taken great care in our selection of the probiotic strains here and along with some very select fiber soothers for the GI tract, people have found Bioraculous to be gas free, unlike many other green drinks in the market.

Of course this is no guarantee that your specific gut situation at the outset will not notice a change which may be the exception, but in a period of time as the good guys overtake the bad this will generally work itself out.

Speaking of Fiber

Everyone knows by now that fiber in the diet is important. But who would think fiber could be exciting? Bioraculous has fiber you can get excited about.

Lignans. We’re talking SDG Flax Lignans (secoisolariciresinol diglucoside).

Lignans are a group of phytonutrients that are found in seeds and grains. Flax seed is by far nature’s richest source of plant lignans. Other sources of lignans such as rye, buckwheat, millet, soya and barley, yield 2 to 6 micrograms of lignans per gram of grain. Flax seed yields an extraordinary 800 micrograms. While the essential fatty acids are in the oil of the flax seed, the lignans are found in the fiber shell of the seed. The oil contains less than 2% of the flax seed lignans.

It takes nearly twenty five pounds of flax seed to produce just 4 ounces of flax lignans. Lignan compounds have shown such extraordinary potential that they have been studied by the National Cancer Institute for their cancer preventative properties. The SDG lignan not only has anti-cancer properties, it also has anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal properties. It has also been shown to enhance immune system functioning and potentially effective against many different diseases.

Cordyceps Extract, Beta Glucan. First, cordyceps has been classified as an adaptogen, i.e. a metabolic regulator which increases the ability of an organism to adapt to environmental factors, and to avoid damage from those factors. Bottom line, he who adapts best, survives longest. Adaptogens are all about anti-aging on many levels with its bioactive modified nucleosides and polysaccharides – like Beta Glucan – sometimes referred to as an immunopotentiator. The immune system is very important to keep tuned up as it can be the difference between doing well or not doing well. Beta Glucan is a powerhouse to assist in this process.

You will also find the other specific fiber factors listed which have been carefully selected to help with absorption and to be soothers to the GI tract to provide everything and more that fiber should.

What No Flax?

Flax lignans yes. Seed and oil, no. You will not find flax seed in Bioraculous. Nor will you find other seeds supplying polyunsaturated fatty acids. These have often been referred to as EFAs or essential fatty acids. Some research suggests grave errors in the promotion of such thinking particularly when related to the chemistry of some individuals. It appears that some polyunsaturated fatty acids, more so than others, acts to speed up oxidation processes, and not in a good way.

Due to selected preferences and promotion of certain studies, the health food industry has packaged all manner of polyunsaturated oils into products and onto the shelves for consumption. That may not be a good thing, because…

The indiscriminate consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids can lead to faster aging.

Yes, people sometimes do feel great taking the so-called essential oils, or fish oils, but that may be due more to oxygen over-utilization and its related burn, which gives a boost for a while, but it comes at the expense over time of an increase in cellular and metabolic breakdown and other signs of faster aging.

This can be seen in practice, particularly in people over age 40-50. When an increase in seeds, nuts, or other items or supplements with these types of oils are consumed, you will see a concurrent increase in age spots popping up on the skin. A clear sign of aging.

So, no fishy or other oils for Bioraculous. What there is, is only…

Healthy Lipids

Lipids are fats. And there are healthy fats which the body needs, without which it would simply fall apart.

Lecithin. This is an antioxidant. It is a mixture of fatty and fat-like substances that your body cells need to stay healthy. Lecithin is produced daily by the liver if one's diet is adequate. It is needed by every cell in the body and is a key building block of cell membranes. Lecithin protects cells from oxidation and largely comprises the protective sheaths surrounding the brain. It is composed mostly of B vitamins, phosphoric acid, choline, linoleic acid and inositol. Although it is a fatty substance, it is also a fat emulsifier (breaks down fat) and therefore, supports the circulatory system. Its choline is useful for making acetylcholine.

Lecithin can be taken when there is difficulty in digesting fat. Lecithin also helps to prevent arteriosclerosis, improves brain function, protects against cardiovascular disease and aids in the absorption of vitamin A by the intestine and thiamine by the liver. It is needed to help repair damage to the liver caused by alcoholism.

Lecithin and the phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine it delivers – superstars for cell membrane maintenance – is all about cell protection, brain protection, and is why some might refer to it as brain food.

MCT. Medium Chain Triglycerides from coconut milk. In the animal kingdom, mothers milk for her babies deliver the most important of nutrients. Where humans are concerned, a most important component of mother’s milk is MCTs. They help improve nutrient absorption and digestive function, support the immune system, and they are taken directly to the liver where they are used as an immediate source of cellular energy.

Amino Acids

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein structure in the body – important to everything from holding you up to supplying the material for the synthesis of new proteins used in the brain for memory storage.

We bring amino acids in through our diet, but many amino acids are heat-labile, i.e. they are destroyed through cooking. How many people eat all their meals cooked? Too numerous to count, and yet almost every metabolic pathway in human physiology can be adversely affected from insufficient availability of intact life providing amino acids.

Since amino acids are critically important to active life processes being carried out effectively and so many people cook a lot of their food thereby destroying what they need to be getting, we added a little bit of…

Pea Protein Concentrate specifically to provide a complex of raw amino acids. While Bioraculous is not a protein drink, having a mix of amino acids available adds to the synergism of the overall nutrition factor of Bioraculous which is what makes it so miraculous!

Enzymes – The Catalysts for Life

The chemistry of the body is all about taking one substance and converting it into another substance for biological utilization. Enzymes are the catalysts that make it all work,and work faster. Without enzymes as catalysts, many biological processes just wouldn’t happen, or it could take so long to occur you could die simply waiting around for it to happen.

Sadly, some people do die waiting around for their biological processes to get into gear. While not feeding themselves well and getting important enzymes (as well as amino acids, trace minerals, antioxidants, vitamins and other co-factors of health) into their diets, it leads them to all manner of ill health – including obesity.

Now you might think a person that is fat and eating all the time is feeding themselves, the fact is at a molecular level their bodies are starving. They are not getting nor assimilating what is needed for health and what they are getting is simply turned into fat.

Biochemists have referred to enzymes as the body’s “labor force” or even as the “life energy” of the organism. The same might also be said of the enzymes in Bioraculous. We put a select Plant Enzyme Blend into the formulation to provide the work force to not only act as a catalyst for assimilation, but as a force to put more life energy back into the human.

Enzymes – What you Might Not Know

Enzyme listings on a nutrition label is an area that is often opaque to the end user. Here’s an example that may surprise you:

Two companies sell a tablet of papain enzyme. Company 1’s tablet is listed at 25mg 50,000 FCC units and tests as such. Company 2’s tablet is listed at 25mg, but tests at 1 part of 2000 FCC units with 24 parts of filler. Both show papain enzymes, 25mg on their bottle. Consumers might think they are the same, but they’re not. Listing enzymes in milligrams is meaningless without stating the activity level. Doing so may very well mean you are paying for filler as opposed to active ingredient.

Can this be done? Yes, and it’s done all the time. If a nutrient label lists enzymes per serving by milligram weight only, you have to ask, how much of that weight is filler? It could be 98% filler and the balance enzyme, but of that, how much is active? You don’t know. Perhaps the manufacturer doesn’t want you to know that you’re really paying top dollar for something that is actually pretty cheap. Listing enzymes in milligram units only is a way to command more money without having to provide more benefit as the increased benefit is only in the perception and mind of the buyer. After all, look at all the milligrams worth of enzymes in each serving!

Bioraculous Enzyme Activity

Enzymes are categorized by the reaction they catalyze and they have measurable activity levels. These activity levels are presented in myriad ways in the industry. In food supplements, assays published in the Food Chemicals Codex (FCC) is encouraged to be used for consistency so consumers can understand the value of one product over another for themselves, but having this done across the broad spectrum of enzymes and suppliers has not been accomplished. Take bromelain for example; this could be assayed by BTU (bromelain tyrosine units), MCU (milk clot units), CDU (casein digestion units), GDU (gelatin digestion units) and FCC.

In time, as enzymes become more established as individuals come to know the benefits of utilizing enzymes for their health, more demand may develop more consistent enzyme presentation on product labels. Until then, the Bioraculous label states its enzyme activity levels in an assayed way and not simply by way of a weight. We have gone to providing a meaningful level of enzyme activity in the product, but yet have not gone overboard to imbalance the mix as this is not designed to be a targeted enzyme product. The enzymes are there to act as catalysts to engage biological life processes synergistically with everything else in Bioraculous.

Resveratrol

Resveratrol is the red wine connection. Much has been written about the ‘French Paradox’, one being that low levels of cardio vascular disease exist commensurate with the increased amount of red wine consumed. Resveratrol as an active phytonutrient in the grape has gotten the attention. Much research has been done on this red wine compound and the latest to be released is very interesting to note.

At a recent (August 2012) ACS - American Chemical Society - event, research conducted at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh was presented on resveratrol that has shown increased coordination and nerve tissue protection against the effects of aging. Aging is of great concern to a large percentage of the population. Along with that concern is the desire to be independent and maintain physical mobility into the later years.

It appears resveratrol may spell great help to the elderly in reducing risk to falls and related neuro-tissue degeneration. It seems the key to effective utilization is the synergy it needs with other high ORAC compounds, and as we’ve seen, Bioraculous has that aplenty.

We could look at every item in the antioxidant category as each one has a story to tell, but all in all it's about…

Super Extracts

There is more of a story here with extracts of acai, EGCG, turmeric, beet root and the others. Suffice to say, with all the positive health news on these items to date, you will be happy that these are in the product which helps add to the overall positive synergy of this incredible green drink.

Miraculous? No, Bioraculous!

The last of the ingredients listing indicates natural plant flavors. What these are we will not disclose as it is proprietary information giving Bioraculous its great taste, but we will say they are not at all artificial but 100% natural without any MSG or other excito-toxins (chemicals toxic to brain neurology like aspartame, etc.).

Due to the incredible sweet tooth that people possess (Bioraculous was made for everyone and not just the pond drinking and grass eating health nut) we gave a mellow sweetness to Bioraculous that is very pleasant.

Being adamantly opposed to high fructose corn syrup/corn sugar, sucralose and many other sweeteners, Stevia has played a role. Being not only non-toxic, stevia has had several traditional medicinal uses by the Indian tribes of South America. Studies suggest it has a regulating effect on the pancreas and could help stabilize blood sugar levels which is very important these days with an over-sugarfied culture and people facing down diabetes, hypoglycemia and candidiasis at ever increasing levels.

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A Word About Organic and Quality

There is much confusion about the word organic. In the USA, the USDA regulates the use of the word and it means different things depending on the particular foodstuff that bears the label.

We believe that all that is intended as food for humans be grown naturally and sustainably. This basically means without synthetic chemical support in its myriad forms and certainly without genetic modification.

Genetics aside and not considered, certain chemical support in the growing process in the end may not have a direct impact on the nutritional value or quality of the food, as much as it might impact the environment. But this also depends on many variables and what we might be discussing with specificity which is far too deep to go into here.

What we do want to discuss here is something that many people don’t realize where nutrition is concerned. And that is this; just because something is labeled organic, does not mean it is better nutritionally than something that is not labeled organic.

We Grow Food Why?

The purpose of growing food out of the soil, is to bring the mineral up out of the earth into the plant where the magic of photosynthesis can process it with the energy of the sun where we in turn will get it all back out when we eat it (assuming our digestion is working well.)

You may recall the phrase “we are made of the dirt of the earth” - it is that which also sustains us. Everything in life can be broken down to the periodic table of the elements. There is not anything in us physically that did not come off that table. Our health directly depends on those elements and the biological processing machine that are we that can take it in and use it.

In the natural farming community, getting mineral into the plant is the goal. The more mineral in the plant, the more dynamic it is in terms of nutritional value and its ability to fight off disease and pestilence (bugs, rot, fungus, etc.), and the more healthy for us.

Tools of the Trade

One tool used in the field to get a quick look at the mineral content of food is called a refractometer. This measures the degree of weight of the juice in the crop being grown be it fruit, vegetable, grass, etc.

The more weight to the juice, the more mineral in the food.

We know the nutritional power of a food through the refractometer by weight tables which index weights of various crops and classifies them as poor, average, good or excellent. For example, a pear would measure poor at 6, average at 10, good at 12, and excellent at 14.

One day we were visiting a workshop with a local organic growing club. The people were very proud of their growing habits and organic production. Upon measuring their bounty, most of what they were growing barely made it up to “poor” for mineral value. Did their organic effort do anything for their food? No it did not. Possibly for the environment and long term sustainability of the soil, but this all depends on a lot of unknowns. What is known is their end product, nutritionally speaking as related to mineral content, was not good.

So this raises the question. If you have two pears in front of you, one that has a certified organic label and measures 6, and another with no label and measures 12, which one do you want for your health?

You would want the pear that measures 12. Take it home, wash it and eat it. The mineral content in that one is far more valuable nutrition-wise than the one grown organically. Choosing the more deficient pear simply because it has an organic label may be making more of a social or political statement that’s not related to what your body wants; the best nutrition you can give it.

Processing for Quality

With the knowledge that being organic is not synonymous with quality, and things certified as organic are often priced much higher, there is careful consideration that goes into ingredient selection for a product like Bioraculous. Bottom line, we want the best ingredients that we can get at a price point that won’t preclude most people buying it because they can’t afford it.

Getting the best quality product is of paramount importance which is why we use a certified USDA organic processor, cGMP compliant with very tough FDA oversight. At any moment the FDA can show up at their door (which they have done), to test every single raw ingredient in the warehouse (which they have also done) looking for any form of quality violation. Happily, they have always left with nothing to act upon. This is being on top of your game.

Everything that comes in their door is tested for microbials and for things that should not be there, like heavy metals. Each ingredient has to pass muster as top quality. If something fails tests, it can’t be used.

Raw ingredients aren’t just being purchased so they can go into a “health food” product to sell into some market simply for financial gain, it’s also being consumed by the producers themselves and going to their children and families as well.

Being directly in the thick of the health and wellness business, the objective is to tap resources and strive to obtain the highest quality wherever it may come from worldwide.

Along with everything else, we can say it again, Bioraculous is simply - miraculous.

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The California Proposition 65 Label Warning

You might notice the California Prop 65 warning on new labels of Bioraculous. This is on the label because this product is sold in California which has stricter environmental standards than the federal government. One of the greens in our product is Barley Grass juice which has naturally occurring levels of lead. (There is also apple which is known to have naturally occurring arsenic.) These naturally occurring levels, while below federal levels as something that might cause a problem, may not be below what California has set for their citizens. Interestingly, if a food item is in a raw form in a grocery store vegetable bin it is assumed natural and requires no label, but once packaged as a food supplement it is treated differently and has labeling requirements that must meet Prop 65 standards.

From the information website: http://ahpa.org/Consumers/CaliforniaProposition65FAQ.aspx

“A product does not have to contain a level of the substance that represents an actual risk to trigger a Prop 65 warning.

In the case of chemicals that may cause reproductive harm, the trigger is set at a level 1000 times below the level at which no measurable reproductive effect can be scientifically detected.* In other words, the Prop 65 warning would be required on a food containing a daily serving of 1 ounce or more of the chemical if animal studies predict that a human would have no reproductive effect when eating up to 62.5 pounds per day of the chemical.
In the case of chemicals that may cause cancer, the trigger is set at a level which may cause no more than 1 case of cancer in 100,000 persons exposed to the chemical at that level on a daily basis for a 70-year lifetime.*
For many Prop 65-listed chemicals, the responsibility for determining these trigger levels is placed on the companies selling products in California. In such situations, to protect themselves from lawsuits companies may decide to provide the Prop 65 warning no matter how low the level of the substance is in their product.

Thus, because of Prop 65’s stringent warning thresholds, a warning may be required under Prop 65 even if no one would ever be harmed and a warning may appear on products even when not required.

*California Health and Safety Code, Chapter 6.6, section 25249.10(c)"

There are California law firms that have made a cottage industry of testing products without labels and then bringing lawsuits. These lawsuits can destroy a company and preferring that not happen to us, we label the product as it is sometimes sold to California residents.

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ORAC means Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. It is a scientific measure of the overall power of a food to squelch free radical activity.

Free Radicals are molecules that are missing electrons. They are radical in their behavior as they seek to snatch other electrons from where ever they can.

Molecules of material make up every cell in the body. Free radicals adversely affect human cells. Keeping cellular integrity intact is a fundamental element for good health.

USDA research suggests 3000-5000 ORAC units each day as a beneficial level of consumption. Bioraculous was formulated specifically for an ORAC value of 5000 units in every serving to conquer the ORAC nutrition doctors recommend in 5 to 9 daily servings of fruits and vegetables!