Phytochemicals (ORAC Values)

Many chronic and degenerative diseases, such as cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson and heart disease are partly cause by oxidate stress, caused free radicals. antioxidants in foods, such as vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium and many phytochemicals can eliminate these free radicals. There exist different methods to measure the antioxidant capacity of foods and phytochemicals: Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity < Ferric Ion Reducing Power and Trolox Equivalence Antioxidant Capacity.. The most popular method is the ORAC method measures the inhibitability of the phytochemicals on azo-induced oxidation of fluorescein. The fluorescent intensity of fluorescein decreases after the addition of the azo-initiator, which acts as a free radical generator. The degeneration of fluorescein becomes reduced by the presence of antioxidants.