Unlocking The Anti-Aging Secrets of Sea Buckthorn Berry

Sea Buckthorn Berry: The Amazing Anti-Aging Benefits of This Ancient Superfood

Few natural products sit comfortably both on Michelin-starred menus and natural health product aisles, but this ancient berry is one functional food that fits the bill. This vibrant berry - with nicknames such as “Holy Fruit of the Himalayas”, “Liquid Gold”, and “Wonder Berry” - is packed with health-promoting and healing compounds.

What’s more, as a natural supplement, sea buckthorn berry can support the body’s stem cells and slow the aging process. Let's take a closer look at how the tiny berries from this wonder plant can help you and those you love.

Key Takeaways

• Sea buckthorn berry is a nutrient-dense superfood containing vitamins, minerals, proteins, essential fats, plant compounds, and a treasure trove of antioxidants.

• Lab research and human clinical trials have shown numerous health benefits of sea buckthorn berry. An extract of the berry boosts circulating stem cells which counters many processes involved in aging and disease.

• Incorporating sea buckthorn berry into the diet can be done through foods, beverages, oils, and supplements.

Sea Buckthorn Berry: An Ancient Healing Secret

Native to Europe and Asia, sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L) is a deciduous golden bush that produces orange-yellow berries. This sea buckthorn fruit, also known as sea berries, is packed with a wealth of nutrition that makes it a veritable superfood.

Sea berry is considered one of the most powerful natural medicines available and has been used in Asian medicine for thousands of years. For example, it's named in Chinese traditional medicine scripts over 1,500 years ago and in a Tibetan medical text dating back to the eighth century.

In recent decades, this wonder plant has come to the attention of scientists who have carried out multiple laboratory studies. Their work supports its ancient medicinal uses in herbal medicine. What's more, tests reveal that the astonishing array of health benefits of sea buckthorn may be due to its almost two hundred nutritional and bioactive components, including rich stores of antioxidants.

Amazing Superfood: This Berry's a Nutritional Powerhouse

The sea buckthorn fruit is very rich in vitamin C. In one analysis the sample contained 275mg per 100g -- that’s more than five times higher than an orange! In addition to vitamin c, the berries also provide various vitamins in significant amounts such as vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin K, and B vitamins including vitamin B12.

Among its numerous minerals, the most abundant are potassium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. The berry also contains many amino acids, including eight of the nine essential ones. In addition, sea buckthorn pulp oil is a rich source of essential fatty acids including omegas 3, 6, 7, and 9.

Unique Antioxidants for Aging Gracefully

Sea buckthorn's treasure trove of antioxidants is one of the reasons this berry is so important to good health. It's packed with antioxidants from flavonoids to carotenoids. There are so many that sea buckthorn berries are recognized by the International Sea Buckthorn Association for their amazing health benefits. Of the wealth of botanicals contained within sea buckthorn, some of the most important include:

Carotenoids – high levels give the berry its characteristic orange-yellow hues. These antioxidants, which include lutein and zeaxanthin, are particularly important for the eyes and help prevent age-related macular degeneration.

Polyphenols – nearly a hundred are contained in the fruit and are its biggest source of antioxidant activity. The polyphenol content is at least five times higher than blueberries and ten times higher than strawberries. Polyphenols are so important to good health that they're often cited as the reason for the health benefits of many antioxidant natural remedies.

Flavonoids - are a family of polyphenolic antioxidant compounds and there are ninety-five identified in the sea berry plant. These have potential roles in the prevention of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, as well as in stopping other chronic diseases of aging. Flavonoids are the antioxidant components credited with being behind the health benefits of many other fruits and vegetables.

Phytosterols – Researchers detected fourteen phytosterol compounds in sea berry. Antioxidant phytosterols help to reduce cholesterol and prevent cardiovascular disease. Phytosterols are found in a number of nuts, fruits and vegetables and can dramatically improve your health.

You can tap into the antioxidant powers of each of these by eating the sea berry or by consuming sea buckthorn extract in supplement form.

Benefits Your Health from Head to Toe

Not surprisingly, a food packed with this many powerful antioxidant compounds can provide numerous health benefits. Laboratory and/or clinical studies have confirmed benefits of sea buckthorn berry such as:

• Fighting an excess of destructive free radicals

• Quelling inflammation

• Protecting against harmful bacteria and viruses

• Nourishing the liver, kidneys, and brain

• Improving the appearance of wrinkles

• Preventing cancer

• Protecting the cardiovascular system by decreasing platelet aggregation, inhibiting blood clots, and lowering high blood fats

• Reducing the risk of obesity

• Lowering high blood sugar

• Improving cognitive impairment by suppressing oxidative stress and inflammation

• Restoring the skin and mucous membranes to help with wound healing and to prevent skin diseases

• Improving bone mineral density

• Protecting against the harmful effects of radiation

• Modulating the immune system – which means protecting against an overactive immune response as well as boosting immunity in the immune suppressed.

Many clinical studies reveal that sea buckthorn berry is especially helpful for the heart, skin, mucous membranes and wound healing.

Human Studies Reveal Sea Buckthorn Berry's Role in Natural Anti-Aging

Benefits the heart - A systematic review of eleven randomized controlled trials in patients with high blood fats or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease found supplementation with sea buckthorn significantly reduced total cholesterol, LDL "bad" cholesterol and triglycerides, and significantly increased HDL “good” cholesterol in subjects at cardiovascular risk. Other studies have shown significant reductions in C-reactive protein, an important marker of inflammation; apolipoprotein B, a risk factor for atherosclerosis; decreased waist circumference in the overweight; and a reduction in elevated blood pressure.

Heals the skin: Sea buckthorn oil, extracted from the berries, with its essential fatty acids, serves as a natural skin moisturizer and healing agent. In the form of sea buckthorn cream it shortened the period of second degree burn healing compared to a commonly used pharmaceutical lotion in 55 hospital patients. In another study, patients with psoriasis saw an improvement after applying a sea buckthorn preparation compared to a placebo.

Mucus membrane support: In a randomized, placebo controlled, double-blind trial, 116 postmenopausal women experiencing symptoms of vaginal dryness, itching, or burning consumed three grams of sea buckthorn oil or placebo for three months. Compared to placebo, there was a significantly better rate of improvement in the integrity of the vaginal epithelium in the sea buckthorn group.

The list of benefits of this remarkable berry is substantial, but it goes even further because of its impact on stem cells, as we’ll see later. But first, what's important about stem cells?

Helping Stem Cells Remain Young and Healthy

A prolific amount of medical research today is focused on finding safe ways to use stem cells to treat age-related diseases and even slow the aging process itself.

Stem cells in the bone marrow start out with a blank slate, waiting for instructions to be turned into a skin cell, a brain cell, a liver cell, or other types as needed. Their importance in medicine lies in their ability to replace cells that become injured or diseased throughout the body.

After birth, “adult” stem cells are found in the bone marrow. From there they can enter the circulation and migrate to most tissues but not all, so are deemed multipotent. They can remain dormant in any organ or tissue and be kept in reserve for years until they’re needed to replace injured and damaged cells.

Most work on stem cells is still in the research stage and undergoing trials, so approved stem cell treatments in the United States are currently few in number. There’s no doubt stem cell transplantation holds immense promise, but it could take years before it comes into general use, so we need to look for ways that we can use to naturally keep stem cells younger for better health, such as electroacupuncture.

Growing Older: Stem Cells Age and Become Depleted

Adult stem cells make up only around one in 100,000 body cells so they are quite rare, and we need to hold on to them.

When an adult stem cell divides, one new cell remains as a stem cell while the other becomes a somatic cell (any cell other than a reproductive cell). The new stem cell can continue to supply new somatic cells as needed. However, this process doesn’t work perfectly, so as we grow older, stem cells become less able to produce new somatic cells. Our reserves of stem cells also get run down. This is known as stem cell exhaustion and is a hallmark of aging.

As researchers from Loma Linda University in California write: “…there is now compelling evidence that the aging process has a deleterious effect on stem cells, and that the aging effects on stem cells may play essential roles in the pathophysiology of the various aging-associated diseases.” They add that “it is clear that we grow old partly because our stem cells grow old with us.”

In other words, if we can keep our stem cells youthful and healthy they have the potential to:

• Reduce chronic low-grade inflammation that comes with aging – “inflammaging.”

• Modulate the immune system to help prevent the decline in immune efficiency with aging – immunosenescence.

• Protect against oxidative stress from an abundance of free radicals that accelerate aging.

• Enhance repair mechanisms that support healthy tissues and delay the onset of changes that promote aging.

• Regenerate damaged tissues to potentially reverse harm that could speed aging.

The good news is that we can support the rejuvenation of our stem cells with sea buckthorn berry.

Sea Buckthorn Berry Boosts Circulating Stem Cells

Christian Drapeau - a pioneer in stem cell research  - and colleagues published an important study in 2019 in which they found that a polyphenol-rich extract from sea buckthorn berries increased stem cell mobilization in humans.

The study included 12 healthy men and women with an average age of 49. The trial had a randomized, double-blind, crossover design. The researchers took blood samples immediately before participants consumed either 500 mg of a sea berry extract or a placebo and then again after one and two hours. The researchers looked at endothelial stem cells and protein markers from white blood cells that are present when stem cells are active in repairing and maintaining the body. They found that compared to placebo there was a sizable increase in the number of circulating adult stem cells released from the bone marrow. For example:

Hematopoietic stem cells that form red and white blood cells and T cells increased by 24.2 percent after two hours.

Mesenchymal stem cells that generate bone, cartilage, and connective tissue cells increased 20.8 percent after two hours.

Endothelial stem cells that produce smooth, skeletal, and cardiac muscle cells, increased by 33.4 percent after two hours.

Such fast responses are important because stem cells need to race to damaged tissues as soon as possible. In their paper the research team wrote that “we have uncovered a new mechanism of action behind many of the health benefits that have been historically associated with sea buckthorn berries.” The sea berry extract used in the trial is called CyanthOx™30.

CyanthOx™30 in Stem Cell Restore

CyanthOx™30 is obtained from organic wild-harvested sea buckthorn grown high up on a pollution-free plateau in the mountain slopes of Tibet. For the plant to survive in such harsh conditions it's compelled to produce berries with considerably higher nutritional value than those grown in more favorable conditions.

Its ORAC value – a measure of its antioxidant capacity  - is extremely high at 895,281 μmol TE/100g. That makes it eight times more potent than grape seed extract and 1.7 times more powerful than French pine bark extract.

That's why we chose CyanthOx™30 as the foundation of our revolutionary anti-aging formula, Stem Cell Restore. CyanthOx™30 is joined by resveratrol, the red grape compound shown in clinical studies to support healthy repair stem cells generated from within your own body. We also added extracts of grape seed and black currants, for next-level antioxidant support, cardiovascular support, and natural anti-inflammatory support. No other healthy-aging support formula delivers all five stem-cell-supporting nutrients in two easy-to-swallow capsules.

Summary

The sea buckthorn berry is a versatile and nutrient-dense superfood that offers numerous health benefits that include supporting heart health, improving skin conditions, and modulating the immune system. In the form of a supplement it was shown in a gold standard human trial to increase circulating stem cells, offering the potential to hold back the aging process.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I eat sea buckthorn berries raw?

Yes, sea buckthorn berries can be eaten raw. However, they are usually consumed in other forms, such as sea buckthorn juice, sea buckthorn seed oil or sea buckthorn berry extract due to their acidic and sour taste.

How can I incorporate sea buckthorn berry into my diet?

You can incorporate sea buckthorn berry into your diet by consuming them in various forms such as jams, jellies, sauces, and beverages, or simply eating the berries themselves. Adding sea buckthorn berry extract supplement is the easiest method for taking sea buckthorn to take advantage of its many health benefits.

Can sea buckthorn berry help with heart health?

Yes, sea buckthorn berry can help with heart health as studies suggest it can reduce blood pressure, improve blood cholesterol levels and prevent blood clots.

Are sea buckthorn supplements available?

Dietary supplements are available in various forms, such as capsules, oils, juices and powders. When choosing a sea buckthorn supplement, picking a top-quality product like Stem Cell Restore is imperative. In addition to using a patented and proprietary extract of sea berry, here at Green Valley Naturals, we only work with US-based manufacturing facilities that are cGMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) compliant and FDA inspected. Our products are triple tested by our manufacturers to ensure potency and purity and are stored in our temperature and humidity-controlled warehouse in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. And we ship directly to your doorstep – we don't share warehouse space and we don't hand off your business to a third party to fulfill your order. Best of all, all Green Valley Naturals products come with our 90-day Satisfaction Guarantee.

Is it safe to take sea buckthorn supplements?

Sea buckthorn berry products are generally safe, but some individuals may experience side effects such as digestive issues or skin irritation. Additionally, it’s important to test a small area of skin before applying sea buckthorn oil or cream to a larger area, as it may cause skin irritation in some individuals.