Orange juice reduces the toxic effects of a fatty breakfast

Posted on Wed, 16 Jun 10

Did you know a high-fat high-sugar meal can cause toxins to leak from your gut into your blood, increase inflammation and oxidative stress and increase your risk of heart disease? There are foods that may counter this effect however, a glass of fresh orange juice with a fatty breakfast for example.

What you can’t see can harm you

To test whether the toxic inflammatory effects of an unhealthy breakfast could be countered with a glass of fresh orange juice a group of  people ate  an egg-muffin and sausage-muffin sandwiches and 2 hash-brown potatoes and then drank either a sugary drink, water or fresh orange juice (not from concentrate). Sure enough, within just one hour of eating, the fatty breakfast increased inflammation, oxidative stress and the level of gut toxins (endotoxin) found in the blood. Compared to water or a sugary drink the fresh orange juice buffered these effects.

Reduce your inflammatory load

This observation provides insight into how quickly what we eat can have detrimental effects that, if persistent over time, can damage your cardiovascular system and eventually result in the development of serious illness such as a heart attack or stroke. To lower the inflammatory load of your diet regulalry enjoy foods that have the opposite effect to the egg-muffin and sausage-muffin sandwiches in this study such as fresh fruits and vegetables, herbs and spices, nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, olive oil, oily fish and whole grains.

Reference:

Ghanim H, et al. Orange juice neutralizes the proinflammatory effect of a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal and prevents endotoxin increase and Toll-like receptor expression. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Apr;91(4):940-9.