This is important news for anyone concerned with fighting aging since antioxidant-rich diets are one of the surest ways of combating the physiological ravages of time.

According to the modern free radical theory of aging, putting higher amounts of antioxidants into the diet slows oxidative processes and free radical damage that contribute to age-related degeneration and disease.

Daily antioxidant therapy—feeding the body foods it craves to sustain, vitalize and renew—delivers preventive effects against cancer, heart disease, vision deterioration and skin aging. Antioxidants neutralize free radicals produced by poor diet, environmental exposures, stress and toxic personal habits.

To measure the antioxidant activity of foods, scientists at the National Institutes of Health have developed a method of determining the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) for foods. The ORAC value shows how quickly a food reduces highly reactive oxidizing (rusting) compounds into harmless chemical substances that the body has successfully uncoupled. Those foods providing the best reducing power per 100 grams earn the highest ORAC scores.

Studies indicate that the antioxidant activity of high ORAC foods that protects cells can:
• Raise the antioxidant power of human blood;
• Prevent some loss of long-term memory and learning ability in middle-aged rats;
• Maintain the ability of brain cells in middle-aged rats to respond to a chemical stimulus and protect tiny blood vessels (capillaries) against oxygen damage.

Native people used noni fruit both internally and externally for its potent healing and pain-relieving properties. But noni rarely, if ever, makes its appearance as a fresh fruit. Its destiny in world trade has succumbed to perishability until the last few decades when the fruit’s fermented, pungent bottled juice became an international best seller.

As a result, nobody realized just how much antioxidant power the concentrated noni fruit contains— that is, until now, thanks to the work of an organic farmer in Hawaii whose processing methods preserve the nutrition of the fresh fruit in what is known as &ldquo noni fruit leather.” Laboratory testing performed for Noni, reveals a new level of antioxidant potency from noni fruit leather that is higher than juice and apparently higher than many other well-known highest-rated ORAC foods like strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. A private analysis of the antioxidant value of noni fruit leather could make it the number one ORAC-ranked raw whole food supplement.