Eating an orange is much healthier than simply taking vitamin C pills. A host of antioxidants in orange work together to retard ageing and would possibly keep heart disease and cancer at bay, the Journal of Food Science reports.
"There is something about an orange that's better than taking a vitamin C capsule, and that is really what we're trying to figure out," said Tory Parker, assistant professor of nutrition, dietetics and food science at Brigham Young University in US.
Parker explained that every time we eat carbs and fat, we increase the amount of free radicals in our blood. Over time, that increases our chance for hardened arteries and heart disease. But eating fruit protects us from that effect for a few hours after every meal.
Parker noted supplement companies often mix "high concentrations of extracts from blueberry and blackberry and orange and throw them all together and hope it's good."
The researchers identified several combinations of antioxidants that were the most synergistic - the compounds hesperidin and naringenin, in particular, appeared to contribute the most punch in the combinations.
Those are the mixtures Parker would continue to research in human studies to evaluate whether their health effects mimic those of eating an orange.
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