Antioxidant Rich Mangosteen: Tropical fruits add colour to your health

Here's an article from The New Straits Times Online that explains the reason that the antioxidant rich Mangosteen fruit contains so many antioxidants.


KUALA LUMPUR: A mangosteen a day keeps a thousand doctors away.

Well, this is an exaggeration.

But Dr Lim Ju Boo, a former senior medical researcher at the Institute of Medical Research, said the purple-coloured fruit, and also all coloured tropical fruits, are much higher in antioxidants than fruits from Western countries.

He said like mangosteen, fruits grown in tropical countries were exposed to the sun for hours, allowing them to manufacture starch, sugar and other nutrients through photosynthesis.

"To protect themselves against free radicals generated by the ultraviolet light, they manufacture thousands of antioxidants in the form of carotenoids (coloured natural plant chemicals) and phytochemicals (natural plant chemicals), which are beneficial for people."Dr Lim said in Western countries, the sunlight came in at a slant and most of the ultraviolet rays were absorbed by the thicker protective layer of the atmosphere.

"The plants in Western countries do not suffer the same intensity of damage as our tropical plants do.

"So they produce less coloured protective phytochemicals than their tropical cousins."

He was speaking at "The Therapy of Choice: Synthetic Drugs versus Botanical Medicine" seminar organised by the Malaysian Senior Scientists Association yesterday.

Dr Lim advised consumers to choose fruits and vegetables that were dark green, yellow, orange and red.

"The more colourful they are, the higher the antioxidants," he said.

Try it out yourself and /or read more about it!

The Mangosteen Revolution