Acai Scams – Yes Or No?
Acai Scam or Acai Science?
Acai scams is such a nasty name that this topic deserves a serious scientific review to get at some verifiable truths. Most of the information on the Internet is simply repeated, out of ignorance, from a few original sources. Those original sources are the scams. Just for fun I am going to show you how a scientist (me) evaluates the marketing hype behind the big Acai scam.
What I did was to go to one of my favorite medical databases (CAM on PubMed) and simply look up all of the references to the actual published research on the scientific name of acai, Euterpe oleracea. This is the name that scientists use for the species of palm tree that produces acai berries (which are not really berries, by the way). I am going to give you the Cliff Notes version of the results first, then I will append the complete list of each of the nine research articles that have been published in scientific journals.
Scientific Research on Acai
A total of 9 publications came up in my search. The earliest was published in 2004 and the most recent one in 2008. The main results are listed below:
- 2004 Anthocyanins and similar phytochemicals were isolated and evaluated for antioxidant activity and pigment stability.
- 2005 Several commercial and non-commercial samples of acai fruit pulp were found to have antioxidant activity; very little of this activity was due to the anthocyanins
- 2006 Anthocyanins from fruits were found to be potent inhibitors of nitric oxide
- 2006 Seed extracts show potent antioxidant activity, mostly from as yet unknown ingredients
- 2007 Extracts of acai pits show vasodilator effect on rat tissue
- 2007 Acai fruits have good nutritional value
- 2008 Acai fruit pulp and oil inhibit growth of colon cancer cells in culture; effect is not due to anthocyanins
- 2008 Class of phytochemicals called lignans discovered; showed protective effect on breast cancer cell cultures that were stressed by hydrogen peroxide
- 2008 Showed acai pulp to be equivalent to applesauce in increasing plasma antioxidant capacity
Do Research Articles Support Acai Scams?
In a word, no. The research has nothing to do with the marketing of any acai scam. Note that the vast majority of ads regarding acai offer weight loss claims. You can find all this for yourself with a simple Google search. If you do, then compare what you find with the list of research results that I summarized in the above list. Not one single article has anything to do with weight loss.