Super-duper
Super food is not so super at all
Don't look for easy ways if you want to be healthy!Dmitry Tselikov, Compulenta
Especially nutritious food (superfoods, superfood) – what is it? Dear editors, is it true that it cures all diseases, slows down aging and helps to lose weight, otherwise I'm so fat?..
And why is "super food" almost always something exotic or ancient? Why are dereza and acai, pomegranate and mangosteen super, but the liver is not, although there are much more nutrients in the liver than in the berries and fruits listed above, eh?
Obviously, "super food" is not a scientific or special term. This word is not used by medical professionals and researchers. But enter it into the Internet search bar, and you will get thousands of links (superfood will give millions at all) - to news sites, blogs, online stores. And the PubMed biomedical research database of the US National Library of Medicine will give only three results and assume that you meant superfund.
This does not mean that there is no research in the field of particularly nutritious food. It's just that scientists don't use the prefix "super", and for good reason: it's one thing to study food in laboratories and quite another to analyze its market potential. If some ingredient of "super food" kills cancer cells in a Petri dish, this does not mean that increased eating of this product will save you from the risk of developing cancer. Animal experiments are also not the ultimate truth, because a person is not a pig and not a rat, after all. But even human studies do not provide a definitive answer, because the ingredients are tested in very high concentrations for a very short time, which does not reflect the usual balanced diet.
In short, until now there have not been enough long-term and realistic studies that would confirm that "super food" averts disease and old age.
The origins of the newfangled hobby are banal: the man in the street is obsessed with easy ways. And, as always, it does more harm than good, because it encourages bad habits. For example, a person may have a deceptive sense of security, and he will consider that a "super-healthy" diet allows him to relax.
Another negative point is the prohibitively high cost of "super food". For the fruits of dereza and acai, they ask ten times more than for modest raspberries, blackberries or apples, although the nutritional value of the former is clearly not so high.
Very often, berries and fruits that contain a large amount of antioxidants are recorded in the "super" category. The latter protect the body's cells from free radicals – chemically active molecules that are not only found in tobacco smoke or processed foods, but are also produced naturally as a result of normal metabolism in our body. If there are too many free radicals, they can harm cells and lead to age-related diseases, including cancer.
Most studies on the health benefits of dietary antioxidants are conducted on cellular and animal models. Their results are also not always applicable to a normal dietary context.
As expected, human experiments usually show a short-term increase in the level of antioxidants after taking certain types of food in large quantities. But it's much easier just to avoid sources of free radicals. (How to do this, ask the author of the note in The Conversation – VM.)Do not forget that it does not make sense to improve your health with any one substance.
If you lean on one vitamin or mineral, you will not get better. On the contrary, too much is just as harmful as too little. (And that's right. Incl. it is well known that an excess of antioxidants – for example, with an overdose of biologically active additives – is not only not useful, but can even enhance oxidative processes in cells – VM.) Besides, the body is not able to store some nutrients, so there is no point in consuming the latter in large quantities – they will be expelled with natural secretions.
Fixation on "super food" can distract people from simple food, which is also useful. Most types of Western diets lack not one "super source" of nutrients, but diversity. The most ordinary fruits, vegetables and other natural products have a unique composition, and together they are indispensable for well-being.
There is no such product (even if you mix the ten most nutritious types of food) that could replace a balanced, varied and healthy diet. In addition to this, avoid excessive consumption of processed food and alcohol, and this will be enough (from a dietary point of view) to hope for a healthy old age.
Prepared based on the materials of The Conversation: Superfoods: not so super after all?Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru