Whether we’d like to accept this or not, we truly are what we eat. So it makes sense to put healthy foods in our body instead of junk food that will only make us look older before our time. This junk food leads to oxidative stress which is a major cause of accelerated aging. One top food that is known to reduce oxidative stress is prickly pear cactus fruit (opuntia ficus-indica).
Scientists in Italy have proven that pear cactus reduced oxidative stress in healthy persons. They also found that prickly pear cactus fruit helps balance a healthy oxidative state in your body while it lowers oxidative damage to lipids. This fruit will definitely improve your antioxidant status.
Eating pear cactus also works to increase the vitamin E levels in your body. Scientists aren’t sure how, but researchers found that persons who took either vitamin C supplements or cactus pear fruit ended up with higher levels of vitamin E at the end of the study.
In the end, the scientists concluded that prickly pear cactus fruit will improve your oxidative stress and keep you healthier, but that taking vitamin C supplements at a same dose does not affect the body’s oxidative stress as much. So, eating a food is better than having to take the supplement. (Of course, there are times when only a supplement will do due to the type of supplement you need.) But in this case, food wins.
Despite prickly cactus pears wonderful health benefits, it’s not one of Steven Pratt’s 14 superfoods in his book ‘Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life’.
It’s a brilliant read if you want to use the healing power of food to change your life. Click here to get it on Amazon, or hit the image below.