09.01.04
An international gathering of researchers has agreed for the first time to establish uniform measurement standards for antioxidants. The move could ultimately influence the decisions of supplement and functional food formulators, choosing between a variety of antioxidant compounds on the market, and help them to make more accurate claims about the amount of the disease-fighting chemicals in their products. There are currently between 25 and 100 different methods used to measure antioxidants…This makes it difficult to compare one plant extract to another, or the disease prevention potential of one functional beverage compared to another…The three-day meeting, the First International Congress on Antioxidant Methods, held 16-18 June in Orlando, FL, attracted 144 industry experts and scientists from 19 countries. While there was widespread agreement that antioxidant measurements need to be standardized, the best method to measure the beneficial compounds remained highly controversial. After intense debate, the participants decided to form a multidisciplinary group of scientists to work on setting standards on the methodology used to measure antioxidants. Official standard methods could take two to three years to develop and must be tested in multiple labs to ensure the methods are valid.
—Foodnavigator.com, 7/1/04
—Foodnavigator.com, 7/1/04