Antioxidants

     
From magazine: Acres USA,
Section: Health and Healing News
October 2002 issue

HONEY BOOSTS ANTIOXIDANTS IN BLOOD

Medical science never seems to have any good news for people with a sweet tooth, so it was all the more surprising when Dr. Nicki Engerseth from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign told the American Chemical Society's annual meeting that her research—the first to look at blood levels of antioxidants in humans after honey consumption—showed that honey raises antioxidant levels in the blood significantly.

Engerseth and her colleagues had demonstrated in previous studies that the darker the honey, the richer it is in antioxidants. On a per-weight basis, she and her colleagues have shown, the darkest honey contains antioxidant levels similar to those found in spinach and garlic.

For their latest project, Engerseth's team decided to test the effect of honey on antioxidant blood levels in a group of 25 men, aged 18 to 68 years.

The researchers were surprised to find that water mixed with honey was the only drink that increased levels of antioxidants in the blood, even though the tea used in control tests is known
to contain antioxidants.