Healthful Bioactives from Palm Fruits

Palm Fruit or Red Palm Oil (Elaeis guineesis) is well endowed with a bouquet of phytonutrients beneficial to health, such as tocotrienols, carotenoids, phytosterols and squalene^1&2.

Palm Fruit / Red Palm Oil has a rich orange-red colour due to its high content of natural mixed-carotenes (primarily alpha- and beta-carotene). In fact, it’s considered the richest source of natural mixed-carotene and provitamin A – approximately 15 times more mixed-carotene than carrot³.

Palm Fruit is also one of the richest natural sources of vitamin E and the best source of a potent form of vitamin E known as tocotrienol. There are two major forms of vitamin E – tocopherol and tocotrienol. Studies reported that tocotrienol is 40 – 60 times more potent than tocopherol as an antioxidant in preventing lipid-peroxidation⁴. Clinical studies have reported various health attributes of palm tocotrienols such as brain protection (i.e. attenuates the progression of white matter lesion)⁵, liver support (i.e. mitigate fatty liver (NAFLD))⁶, hair growth⁷ etc.

Besides tocotrienols and mixed-carotenes, palm fruits contain other health beneficial phytonutrients such as phytosterols, squalene and CoQ-10.

This video provides an overview of the Healthful Bioactive from Palm Fruits. Click here for the complete video – Healthful Bioactives from Palm Fruits.

References:

1. Obahiagbon, F.I. et al. (2012). A review: Aspects of the African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis jacq.) and the implications of its bioactives in human health. American Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 3:106-119.
2. Sundram, K. et al. (2003). Palm fruit chemistry and nutrition. Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 12:355-62.
3. Rice, A.L. et al. (2010). Moving from efficacy to effectiveness: Red palm oil’s role in preventing vitamin A deficiency. The Journal of American College of Nutrition. 29:302S-313S.
4. Serbinova, E. et al. (1991). Free radical reclying and intramembrane mobility in the antioxidant properties of alpha-tocopherol and alpha-tocotrienol.Free Radical Biology and Medicine. 10, 263-275.
5. Gopalan, Y. et al. (2014). Clinical Investigation of the Protective Effects of Palm Vitamin E Tocotrienols on Brain White Matter Lesion. Stroke. 45(5), 1422-8.
6. Magosso, E. et al. (2013). Tocotrienols for Normalisation of Hepatic Echogenic Response in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver: A Randomised Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial. Nutrition Journal. 12(1), 166.
7. Beoy, L.A. et al. (2010). Effects of tocotrienol supplementation on hair growth in human volunteers.Tropical Life Sciences Research. 21(2):91-9.