 There are so many aside products on the market now, from frozen pulp and smoothie packs to freeze-dried powder and supplements. How is it eaten traditionally? Amazonian tribes cut down the tree, eat its heart, and then pee on the stump to attract a certain type of beetle that lays these monster maggots. And so a few weeks later you've got three or four pounds of these suckers, so you can make some grub kebabs. I think I'll just stick with my smoothie pack. Despite being used for a long time as food in the Amazon, only since the beginning of this century have Asai berries been the object of scientific research, four years ago I reviewed that research, starting with in vitro studies that showed that Asai could kill leukemia cells in a petri dish at levels one might expect in one's bloodstream eating a cup or two of Asai pulp, or cutting the growth of colon cancer cells in half. Unfortunately, subsequent studies published since then failed to find such benefit for that type of colon cancer, different type of colon cancer, or an estrogen receptor negative form of breast cancer. An Asai extract did appear to kill off a line of estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer cells, but to achieve that level of Asai nutrients in your breast, you'd have to sit down to like 400 cups of Asai pulp. That's the problem with many of these petri dish studies. They use concentrations that you could never realistically achieve in your bloodstream. For example, Asai berries may exert a neuroprotective effect, blocking the buildup of amyloid fibers implicated in Alzheimer's, but only at a dose reached, drinking maybe 2,000 cups at a time, or having an anti-allergy effect, or decreased bone loss at a mere 1,000 cups a day. But I also talked about a clinical study in which folks were asked to drink less than a cup a day of Asai in a smoothie, and appeared to get significant improvements in blood sugar and insulin levels and cholesterol. Now there was no control group, and it was a small study, but there had never been a bigger study to try to replicate it until now. Same amount of Asai for the same duration, but no significant improvements in blood sugars, insulin, or cholesterol. Huh, why did this study fail to show the benefits seen in the first study? Well, this study was publicly funded, no conflicts of interest. Whereas the first study was funded by an Asai company, which always makes you suspect that maybe the study was somehow designed to get the desired result. And indeed the study participants were not just giving Asai smoothies, but explicitly told to avoid processed meat like bacon and hot dogs. No wonder their numbers looked better at the end of the month. Now the new study did find a decrease in markers of oxidative stress in the participants' bloodstream, a sign of how anti-oxidant-rich Asai berries can be. Studies that hawk supplements love to talk about how Asai consumption can triple anti-oxidant capacity. Triple the anti-oxidant capacity of your blood. And if you look at the study they cite, yes, there was a tripling in the anti-oxidant capacity of the blood after eating Asai, but there was the same or even better tripling after just plain apple sauce, which was used as a control and is significantly cheaper than Asai berries or supplements. There was a new study showing significant improvements in artery function after eating Asai berries, but any more than commoner fruits and vegetables? We'll find out next.