Is Pure Acai Berry Safe?

In recent years, acai berries have received worldwide notoriety because of their purported health benefits. Pure Acai Berry is one of many products currently on the market that claim to use the acai berry as a weight-loss supplement.

What is an Acai Berry?

• Acai berries are egg-shaped fruits with purple flesh, measuring about 1.5 cm. The berries get their names from the Amazonian palm (Euterpe oleracea) on which they grow, native along the Amazon River, and known by Brazilian locals as "acais."

How Acai Berries Became Popular in the U.S.

• While acai berries have been prominent in South American countries for some time, the growing realization about their health benefits and advancements in freeze-drying technologies have made this fruit part of the popular culture in the United States and other countries around the world. Its flavor is described as a mix between chocolate and berries and the fruit can be found in products like smoothies.

Health Benefits

• Acai berries have been found to contain nutrients including B vitamins, calcium, iron, potassium and zinc. In July 2003, a Health Sciences Institute (HSI) article stated that acai berries provide 30 times more anthocyanins than red wine and all of the beneficial fatty acids of olive oil, both of which have proven to be "powerful nutritional tools," HSI alternative medicine specialist Jon Barron says in the article. Anthocyanins can help prevent blood clots and improve circulation, Fatty acids increase the body's ability to absorb vitamins A, E, D and K. HSI is a Baltimore, Maryland, organization devoted the promotion of alternative medicine.

  A study published by scientists at the University of Florida in 2006 found that the acai berry destroyed cultured human cancer cells. Their study showed extracts from acai berries triggered a "self-destruct response" in up to 86 percent of leukemia cells tested.

  A 2008 study by AIMBR Life Sciences found that acai berries also have potent anti-inflammatory properties.

Pure Acai Berry

• With the health benefits of the acai berry now widely noted, Incubationer, Ltd., a company based in England, began marketing Pure Acai Berry as a weight loss supplement. According to the website for the Pure Acai Berry product, users can lose from 1 to 5 pounds per week while removing harmful toxins from their bodies and increasing their vitamin and mineral intake.

Is it Safe?

• Peer-reviewed data from National Content, a service providing alternative and complementary therapy data to healthcare professionals, notes that while there is no dosage amount that has been proven safe and effective, acai is considered safe in "food amounts." Pure Acai Berry has a Certificate of Analysis that show it is made only from the freeze-dried berries, the skin of which has been shown to have antioxidant properties according to acai's National Content "Drug Notebook" listing on Healthline.com. The product is also certified as organic, according to the product's website.

  The Drug Notebook listing warns that acai may exacerbate or begin symptoms of high blood pressure, hypertension or edema. It also recommends that acai be avoided by pregnant or nursing women because of a lack of scientific evidence as to its safety.

Product Scams

• In March 2009, the Center for Science in the Public Interest warned potential users not to enroll in free trials of acai-berry-based weight loss products. In addition to reports from thousands of consumers that they had trouble stopping charges to their credit cards after the free trials ended, the center warned that there's no evidence to suggest that acai pills will help with weight loss.

  Pure Acai Berry does not offer free trials.