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ABSTRACT

What does it mean when the label on an energy bar touts an ORAC value of 30,000 or a “natural” fruit beverage advertized a TEAC value of 250? Are the internet ads for natural extracts and antioxidants just full of hot air when they list ORAC, TEAC, DPPH, FRAP, TRAP and CuPRAC values for their products, or do these numbers really mean something? These acronyms belong to a variety of antioxidant “activity”/“capacity”/”potential” assays that have been developed to determine which foods and natural extracts are most likely to provide the proverbial fountain of youth and prevent or cure a wide range of diseases. These assays – ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity), TEAC (Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity), TRAP (total radical-trapping antioxidant parameter), FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power), CuPRAC (Cupric ion-reducing antioxidant capacity), DPPH (diphenylpicrylhydrazyl radical) -- provide a veritable alphabet soup of options for screening anti-radical action, quantitating antiradical potential, ranking products, and marketing natural extracts. However, all the assays were modeled on the assumption that antioxidants are fully absorbed and act entirely by radical scavenging or electron transfer in vivo, and they ignore potential toxic reactions of high concentrations of phenols. In addition, even within the research community there is inconsistency in results and widespread disagreement about which assays are most valid, what the results mean in terms of either antioxidant action or mechanism, and whether these in vitro assays accurately reflect in vivo actions. Should you buy foods or nutraceutical ingredients based on their quoted ORAC, TEAC, or FRAP values? Come hear Dr. Schaich explain what the major in vitro antioxidant assays really spell out in the context of chemical and biological actions of antioxidants, how they can be used appropriately, and what you can learn from their listing on food labels.

Biography
Dr Schaich received her BS in Food Research from Purdue University in 1969 and her ScD in Food Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. She joined Rutgers University in 1988 and has been Associate Professor, Department of Food Science since1994. Prior to that she held various positions in the Medical Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Her research interests include: EPR studies of free radical intermediates and their reactions, particularly of lipids; metal-lipid and chelator-lipid interactions; co-oxiations of proteins and nucleic acids by oxidizing lipids and mechanisms of initiations.