Oranges and PMF,s

Amazing Health Benefit of Tangerines Orange and tangerine peels may be better than drugs for lowering cholesterol--with zero side effects. The magic ingredients that lower "bad" LDL cholesterol by as much as 32 to 40 percent--the same as expensive prescription medication--are compounds known as polymethoxylated flavones (PMFs), reports Science Daily of an international research study conducted in the United States and Canada. Best of all, supplements made from orange and tangerine peels have none of the potentially debilitating side effects of liver disease and muscle weakness so common with the popular cholesterol-lowering prescription drugs. The researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and KGK Synergize, a Canadian nutraceutical company, isolated the PMF compounds from the orange and tangerine peels and gave them to hamsters with diet-induced high cholesterol. The hamsters' cholesterol was lowered as much as 40 percent. There was no effect on "good" HDL cholesterol. A long-term human study is currently in progress.

Why do PMFs lower cholesterol? The researchers suspect, based on early results in cell and animal studies, that it works by inhibiting the synthesis of cholesterol and triglycerides inside the liver. The study is the first to show that PMFs can lower cholesterol, the researchers say. "We believe that PMFs have the potential to rival and even beat the cholesterol-lowering effect of some prescription drugs, without the risk of side effects," Elzbieta Kurowska, Ph.D., lead investigator of the study and vice president of research at KGK Synergize in Ontario, Canada, told Science Daily.

PMFs are similar to other plant pigments found in citrus fruits and have been shown to protect against cancer, heart disease, and inflammation. Unfortunately, it would take about 20 or more cups of orange juice each day to lower cholesterol this way; however, KGK Synergize has recently developed a nutrition supplement containing PMFs with a form of vitamin E that seems to enhance the compounds' effect. It is marketed as a cholesterol-lowering agent under the trade name Sytrinol; the supplement recently became available in the United States. The research findings were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.


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