Combination Of Veggies Has Most Benefits

It turns out your mother was right: eat all your vegetables if you want to stay healthy.

Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel have discovered that antioxidants in supplements don't measure up to the benefits that come from eating the whole vegetables or fruits from which they are derived.

They also found that eating combinations of these foods, rather than just one, increases their benefits and preventive properties against cardiovascular disease because each contains a variety of different antioxidants that work together.

Dietary antioxidants are natural compounds that slow the chemical process called oxidation, which causes cholesterol deposition and narrowing of the arteries.

"Whole fruits and vegetables contain a wide range of natural antioxidants," said Michael Aviram, head of the Lipid Research Laboratory at the institute. "In supplement form, however, antioxidants provide only limited benefits since they usually contain only one specific, isolated antioxidant."

Aviram said vegetables like onions and tomatoes, herbs like garlic, licorice and rosemary, and fruits like grapes (and red wine) and pomegranates are good sources of a variety of natural antioxidants.

And if you're a fan of mixed vegetables, there's more good news. The researchers also found that eating combinations of certain antioxidants has better results than eating the same antioxidants separately.

"Take vitamin E, for instance, which only fights a specific type of free radical," said Aviram. "When vitamin E is combined with other antioxidants (beta carotene, lycopene and some flavonoids) found in tomatoes, the benefits are far greater than those of vitamin E taken alone, because there is a synergistic, cooperative interaction between certain antioxidants."

These findings were published in the December 2002 issue of Free Radical Research, and before that in the October 2000 issue of Antioxidants and Redox Signaling.