What Sets Fisetin Apart as an Antioxidant

Scott: You know, we hear a lot about antioxidants in different products and foods that are rich in antioxidants and flavanoids as well. What setsfisetin apart from all of the other antioxidants or flavanoids that we hear about?

Dr. Puya Yazdi: I think that that's the real key. One, it can cross the blood-brain barrier. Not all antioxidants can actually do that, so that's why we really think of it as a cognitive product. When I think of fisetin, I think the biggest benefit is for cognition because it's one of the few that can cross the blood-brain barrier. In addition to that, you want something to be an antioxidant, but you'd also like it to have other things besides antioxidants. Like I've said before is what makes it unique is not only is it an antioxidant, like other antioxidants, but it has ways of modulating the immune response in the brain and it has ways of modulating your ability to replace cells as they die. So those two mechanisms are important.

Scott: So we talked about fisetin and how important it is. We can find it primarily--strawberries are probably the best for us.

Dr. Puya Yazdi: As you something you can go get to eat, best source.

Scott: Okay.

Dr. Puya Yazdi: But technology allows us to get those other sources that extract that actual compound out of there.

Scott: Okay . . .

Dr. Puya Yazdi: ...try to eat a strawberry.

Scott: Do we get much from strawberries? To get the beneficial amount, we'd have to eat 300 of them?

Dr. Puya Yazdi: It's one of those things. You'd have to eat a lot of strawberries, and it's kind of hard. While eating strawberries is good for you and it will give you some of this fisetin, obviously more is found in certain other tissues. That's the beauty of technology and the beauty of the revolution in medicine and science that's occurred in the last hundred to two hundred years. Now we're able to take an ingredient out of nature that's good for you, but you can't get a lot of it, concentrated, so you're really wrapping up your body's ability to fight certain things. Cognitive decline is one of them.