Extracting Antioxidants from Sea Buckthorns

Sea buckthorn is a kind of berry well known in Tibet, Mongolia, China and Russia as a health drink. It’s also gaining popularity in Western Europe and because of its flavonol content (particularly isorhamnetin), it is believed that sea buckthorn flavonoids may scavenge free radicals, lower blood viscosity, and subsequently help prevent atherosclerosis and heart disease.

Sea buckthorn Juice supplementation doesn’t seem to confer much benefit. So scientists now try to extract the active ingredients in sea-buckthorn to come up with a possibly more potent formulation.

In research published in SCI’s Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture (DOI 10.1002/jsfa2620) Dr C Arumyghan and his team at the Regional Research Laboratory, Trivandrum report the implementation of a new process which retains more than 40% of polyphenols – the same beneficial chemicals found in red wine, 50% of flavonoids and 70% of vitamin C present in the pulp of the red berries.

It still remains to be seen, of course, whether the juice produced using this methodology actually works.

More on Sea-buckthorn and atherosclerosis from A Hearty Life.