Grilling is a hobby of mine. It’s nice to live in South Florida where I can grill outside all year.
If you’re a regular reader you already know I like a juicy grass-fed steak seared on the grill. But I usually alternate steak with fish, and my favorite grilling fish is salmon.
There’s nothing better than a sizzling salmon steak marinated with ginger and a bit of olive oil…
Besides the great taste – and the omega-3s – salmon has another huge health benefit… it’s a little-known nutrient that might be the strongest antioxidant in the world.
It’s called astaxanthin, and it’s the pigment that gives salmon a pinkish color.
Astaxanthin is part of the carotenoid family of nutrients, like beta-carotene. Except astaxanthin is 54 times stronger than beta-carotene. And it’s 65 times stronger than vitamin C.
Astaxanthin helps you maintain a healthy control on inflammation. It actually lowers C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP is a marker of inflammation in your body. Inflammation can persist or spread when your blood vessels aren’t getting the nutrients they need.
Astaxanthin reverses that arterial malnutrition. In one study, they gave people 4 mg of astaxanthin three times a day. Their CRP dropped almost 21 percent. In contrast, the people who got no astaxanthin had their CRP creep upwards… 1
And it’s not just for controlling inflammation. Astaxanthin has a benefit to your DNA. It protects DNA from damage. In another clinical trial people took either a placebo or astaxanthin. After only 8 weeks, a special genetic marker that determines DNA damage dropped by 43 percent in the group taking good doses of astaxanthin.2
Astaxanthin may just be the best antioxidant for DNA protection. It’s 800 times stronger than CoQ10, and 550 times more than vitamin E or green tea.3,4
Salmon is a great source
of astaxanthin. But buy wild salmon. It contains far more astaxanthin than farmed salmon. Four ounces of farm-raised salmon contains less than 1 mg of astaxanthin. But wild-caught sockeye salmon contains a healthy 4.5 mg.5You can also find astaxanthin in pink-colored seafood like lobster, crab, and shrimp.
Astaxanthin is also available as a supplement. Here, you want to be very careful of cutting corners. You can go out on the Internet and find cheap astaxanthin. But it will be synthetic… made using petrochemicals.
What’s worse is synthetic astaxanthin is more than 20 times weaker as an antioxidant than natural astaxanthin. So those people who go for the “cheap” option are really getting robbed. They’re paying $1 for 5 cents worth of antioxidant strength.
And here’s the real shame… most companies make an astaxanthin product tell you all about the benefits from all the different scientific studies… problem is, those studies show their benefit at 10mg of natural astaxanthin. Most supplements only give you half that amount and use a much inferior form than was used in the studies.
I recommend you get at least 10 mg of natural astaxanthin every day for the best antioxidant protection possible. You can find it in my antioxidant formula RES-6 Plus. It has 50 mg of certified pure astaxanthin, along with the other most powerful antioxidants you can find, resveratrol, pterostilbene and EGCG.
In fact, they lift RES-6 Plus head and shoulders above any other antioxidant supplement in the world. I recommend you try it for yourself today. It’s an excellent alternative to eating fish if you can’t throw some wild-caught salmon on the grill any day of the year like we can in South Florida.
1. Spiller, G., Dewell, A., et al. “Effect of daily use natural astaxanthin on C-reactive protein.” Health Research & Studies Center, 2006.
2. Park JS, Chyun JH, Kim YK, Line LL, Chew BP. “Astaxanthin decreased oxidative stress and inflammation and enhanced immune response in humans.” Nutrition & Metabolism 2010; 7:18.
3. Bagchi , D. “Oxygen free radical scavenging abilities of vitamins c, e, β-carotene, pycnogenol, grape seed proanthocyanidin extract and astaxanthins in vitro.” Pharmacy Sciences Creighton University School of Health Sciences. 2001, June.
4. Pandey, S., Devmurari, V., Goyani, M., Bhavika, R.,“Anti aging therapy: various alignments to control premature aging.” International Journal of Pharma and Bio Sciences 2010;V1(2).
5. Turujman, S. A., Wamer, W. G., Wei, R. R., and Albert, R. H. “Rapid liquid chromatographic method to distinguish wild salmon from aquacultured salmon fed synthetic astaxanthin.” J. AOAC Int., 1997;80(3):622-632.