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Amla – A Guide to the World’s Most Powerful Antioxidant

Article written and reviewed by Cyrus Khambatta, PhD
Published October 6, 2018

Have you ever heard of amla before?

Amla (Indian gooseberries) have been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine to treat a wide variety of health conditions. 

The single most mentioned fruit in all of Ayurveda (an ancient natural medicine practice used in India for the past 5,000 years), amla is a medicinal plant with incredibly effective capabilities to minimize inflammation and reverse chronic disease.

Indian gooseberries have been used for centuries in India to treat respiratory diseases, intestinal inflammation, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, skin inflammatory disorders, skin trauma, cancer, and liver diseases. Additionally, amla is the go-to for Indian women to make their hair healthy, long, free from breakage, and keep it from going gray. 

Even Indian men use amla to keep their hair full and thick.

When you look at the list of health benefits that amla fruit brings, it looks too good to be true. How can a single berry ameliorate the symptoms of so many health conditions?

The truth is that amla fruit is one of the most powerful foods ever discovered, and there is almost no chronic disease that amla can’t improve. 

Because of this, we believe that it's only a matter of time before this berry becomes the next “superfood.” Be prepared to hear a lot about this magical Indian berry in the future.

Amla is the Whole Food Antioxidant King

Amla fruit is the king of whole food antioxidants, boasting more antioxidant power than any other in-tact whole food. These gooseberries are abundant in India, and are an antioxidant powerhouse that modern medicine is only beginning to understand.

To gain some perspective, whole Indian gooseberries contain 75 times the antioxidant power of goji berries, 60 times the antioxidant power of pomegranate, 50 times the antioxidant power of raw blueberries (which blow most other berries out of the water), 13 times the antioxidant power of black raspberries, 2.5 times the antioxidant power of acai berries, and 2 times the power of ground turmeric.

It's important to understand that amla comes in many different forms, including amla fruit, amla powder, amla juice, and amla oil. In this article we advocate the use of amla fruit and amla powder (ground from the whole amla berry), and do not advocate consumption of amla juice or amla oil.

Amla oil is commonly found in many hair care and skin care products, and can improve skin health and heir health when used externally. Amla juice does not contain fiber, which accelerates the rate at which it is absorbed into your blood.

What Are Antioxidants?

Antioxidants are extremely important components of plant foods because they quench free radicals in your tissues and blood. Think of antioxidants as front-line soldiers with a very important task at hand: donate electrons to damaged cells (1-6).

Every second of every day, cells in your body are exposed to free radicals - unstable molecules missing a single electron. Free radicals are dangerous to cell membranes, DNA, RNA, and cellular proteins because they bombard these cellular structures in search of electron stability.

Free radicals are formed in your skin when you expose yourself to the sun. Free radicals are formed in tissues when they absorb oxygen donated from red blood cells. Cells in your liver create free radicals when you drink alcohol. Cells in your muscle tissue are exposed to free radicals through exercise.

When free radicals eventually find electron stability, they are quenched of their maniac-like behavior, but in the process they have caused cellular damage that can be difficult to repair. 

This cellular damage is collectively called “oxidative stress.” The more oxidative stress present in your body, the higher your risk for the development of chronic disease.That’s where antioxidants come into the picture...

The World's Most Powerful Antioxidant Tastes Terrible. 

We Made it Awesome.

Click below to learn more about how you can get your hands on Amla Green™ today.

Amla Green

Whole Food Antioxidants Are Nature’s Most Powerful Free Radical Defense

No matter how you slice it, you can’t avoid free radical formation. Instead, a simple nutritional goal is to limit free radical damage by adopting an antioxidant-rich diet. 

Eating antioxidants from a wide variety of colorful fruits and vegetables is the #1 most powerful long-term method of quenching free radical activity, therefore protecting your body from oxidative damage.

Plant foods contain on average 64 times more antioxidant content than animal foods (6).

Whole food antioxidants are nature’s most powerful free radical defense mechanism, and they are significantly more powerful than antioxidants found in supplements. Food-borne antioxidants do the following:

  • They assist in the repair of mitochondria.
  • They assist in the repair of cell membranes.
  • They assist in the repair of damaged cell nuclear membranes.
  • They assist in the repair of damaged DNA.
  • They assist in the repair of mitochondrial DNA.
  • They assist in the repair of the endoplasmic reticulum.
  • They assist in the repair of organelle membranes.

Frequent exposure to whole food antioxidants improves cellular longevity in tissues all throughout your body.

What that means is simple – the longer your cells live, the longer YOU live.

When cells are capable of living for a longer period of time, the tissues in which they live are less prone to inflammation, which in turn reduces your risk for chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

Amla May Be More Powerful Than Both Diabetes and Statin Medications

Even though you may not have heard about amla, the research world has been studying this magical wonder-berry for decades.

Study 1: Amla vs. Atherosclerosis

Amla has been shown to prevent against fatty liver in the setting of a high cholesterol diet. Amla significantly reduced cholesterol, triglycerides, phospholipids, and LDL cholesterol levels by 82%, 66%, 77% and 90%, respectively. In addition, aortic plaques were significantly reduced in only 60 days (7).

Other studies have shown that amla is potently anti-atherosclerotic, improving many aspects of cardiovascular metabolism including improved elasticity of blood vessels, reduced arterial plaque buildup, reduced cholesterol, and reduced triglycerides (8, 9).

Study 2: Amla vs. High Cholesterol

In 1988, researchers studied the effect of taking an amla supplement in men with normal and high cholesterol between the ages of 35 and 55 (10).

They fed both groups of men a raw amla supplement (amla fruit ground into a powder – not amla oil or amla juice) for a total of 28 days, and measured their total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides at the end of the initial 28 day period. During this 28-day period, their total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol dropped significantly.

These men were followed for another 14 days eating a diet without amla supplementation, to determine whether their cholesterol values would change when the supplement was withdrawn.

When the men in the high cholesterol group stopped taking amla, their cholesterol levels rose to almost baseline levels – in half the time that it took for their cholesterol to drop in the first place. This cholesterol rebound was sharp, occurring twice as fast as their initial cholesterol drop.

Study 3: Amla vs. Diabetes Medication

In a 2011 study, scientists investigated the effect of consuming 1, 2, or 3 grams of amla powder (again, a whole food amla powder – not amla juice or amla oil) per day on blood glucose and cholesterol levels vs. Glimepiride, a commonly prescribed diabetes medication. 

They investigated the effect of both daily amla powder and Glimepiride in normal subjects and those living with type 2 diabetes (11).

In comparison with baseline values, daily consumption of amla fruit powder led to a significant decrease in blood glucose values after 21 days across all subjects. 

All doses significantly reduced blood glucose values - and using only 1 gram of amla per day was just as effective as Glimepiride. Both fasting and post-prandial (post-meal) blood glucose values were significantly reduced within 3 weeks.

Amla benefits

Image courtesy of Dr. Michael Greger at Nutritionfacts.org

They also observed significant decreases in total cholesterol and triglyceride values in both normal and diabetic subjects given either 2 grams per day or 3 grams per day. LDL cholesterol was reduced by more than 40% in 3 weeks, triglycerides were cut by more than 45%, and HDL cholesterol increased by more than 25%.

Amla LDL
Amla triglycerides
Amla HDL

Study 4: Amla vs. Statin Medication

In 2012, researchers in India compared the effects of a 500 mg daily amla capsule in a head-to-head competition with 20 mg of Simvistatin, one of the leading statin medications. 

They investigated the effect of amla and Simvistatin in sixty patients with total cholesterol greater than 240 mg/dL and LDL cholesterol greater than 130 mg/dL (12).

Forty of the sixty patients were treated with a 500 mg capsule containing pure amla powder, and the remaining twenty patients were treated with 20 mg Simvistatin. All patients were followed for 6 weeks, to determine the effect of each treatment on lipids and blood pressure.

Amla was found to be just as effective as Simvistatin at reducing total cholesterol, reducing LDL cholesterol, and increasing HDL cholesterol. Simvistatin treatment was found to be more effective than amla at reducing VLDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

Amla benefits

Given the results of this study, one may conclude that amla is just as effective as Simvistatin, because the amla benefits seem equivalent to those of statin medication. That being said, prolonged use of statin medication results in a laundry list of side effects that cannot be ignored.

Side Effects of Statin Medications

In 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned the public that statin medications have been shown to significantly increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

Studies have shown that the higher your dose of statin medication, the higher your risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

A meta-analysis published in 2010 in the journal Lancet that analyzed 14 clinical trials involving more than 91,000 people found that using statin medication to control cholesterol increases your risk for type 2 diabetes by approximately 9% (13).

Another meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2011 including more than 32,000 people found that statin medication increased your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by approximately 12% (14).

In addition to increasing your risk for type 2 diabetes, statin medications have a long list of side effects which are important to understand. These side effects include (but are not limited to):

  • Abdominal pain
  • Abnormal heartbeat
  • Accidental injury
  • Allergic reactions
  • Arthritis
  • Back pain
  • Bronchitis
  • Chest pain
  • Constipation
  • Diarrhea
  • Dizziness
  • Flu symptoms
  • Fluid retention
  • Flatulence
  • Headache
  • Indigestion
  • Infection
  • Inflammation of sinus and nasal passages
  • Insomnia
  • Joint pain
  • Muscle aching or weakness
  • Nausea
  • Rash
  • Stomach pain
  • Urinary tract infection
  • Weakness

In a paper published in 2013, researchers found that statins induce a collection of unwanted side effects (15) in addition to those listed above, shown below:

Statin side effects

Side Effects of Amla

That’s EXACTLY why we decided to create our own amla product.

We figured that if amla benefits outweigh the leading pharmaceutical medications, we had better find a way to make it delicious, otherwise no one will consume it!

Why Isn't Amla Everywhere?

At this point you may be asking yourself a simple question:

The reason why this stuff isn’t everywhere is because there are many roadblocks to getting high quality amla on the shelf.

Problem #1: Amla Must Be Imported to the United States

Since this amla fruit is primarily grown on an industrial scale in India and not in the United States, it must always be imported. This results in higher prices and delays due to shipping, which make it challenging to create amla products in the United States.

Problem #2: Raw Crop Contamination

Raw amla fruit is often contaminated with lead, fungus, and microbes. As a result, untreated amla powder does not meet strict US import standards. This is a huge problem, and obtaining a fresh, uncontaminated crop has become a very challenging task indeed.

Problem #3: Crop-to-Crop Variability

Due to differences in geography, soil conditions, humidity, and availability of water, not all Indian gooseberries are created equal. Crops grown in different regions of India can have varying levels of antioxidant power, resulting in large crop-to-crop variability that decreases consumer confidence.

Problem #4: Not Always Organic

Not all amla sources in India grow the gooseberries under organic standards. As a result, some berries contain pesticide residue, which gets concentrated when the berry is ground into a dry powder.

Introducing Amla Green™

Amla fruit does have one known side effect – it has a very (disgustingly) sour taste rendering it inedible for most people.

Taste any amla product and you’ll recognize that these gooseberries are so tart, you might not be able to drink it at all. Product manufacturers recommend diluting the sour berries in a sweet flavored drinkcto mask the otherwise off putting flavor.

Before I move on, I want to make an important point.

Mastering Diabetes advocates a low-fat, plant-based, whole food diet first and foremost. Amla is not in any way a stand-in for eating a healthy diet - it simply adds some awesome bonus points.

Eating low-fat plant-based whole foods like leafy greens, non-starchy vegetables, starches, fruits, beans and legumes, whole grains, and spices/herbs is the single most powerful thing you can do to reverse insulin resistance and master your diabetes health. This is the key to our program, and the key to your success.

That being said, as a a nutrition and fitness coach responsible for helping thousands of people towards a low-fat, plant-based, whole-food diet, I am eager to get amla into the hands of more people living with high cholesterol, insulin resistance, and diabetes.

As an evidence-based super nerd, adding amla to a low-fat, plant-based, whole-food diet is a no-brainer that has untold metabolic benefit. I believe so strongly in amla powder, that I decided to dust off my lab coat, hit the laboratory, and formulate a new amla product that solves all of the problems listed above, so that I could ensure that the amla benefits get to YOU.

We are working hard with top-tier growers in India who are capable of supplying high quality, contamination-free amla that tastes great. What we’ve created doesn’t exist in the food market today, and we are very excited to release it to the public for exceptional metabolic health.

The amla product we have created is an Indian green tea called Amla Green™ that meets the following requirements:

  • Amla Green™ tastes great, with zero sour flavor and zero bitterness
  • Amla Green™ is a highly concentrated amla source, containing 20 grams of berries per gram of dry powder
  • Amla Green™ is laboratory tested free of lead, fungus, and microbial contamination
  • Amla Green™ contains 100% organic, wild harvested, pesticide free amla
  • Amla Green™ is non-GMO
  • Amla Green™ uses culinary grade amla with extremely high antioxidant activity (ORAC value)
  • Amla Green™ is as close to a whole food as possible - only water has been removed during preparation

If your'e interested in getting your hands on Amla Green™ so that you, too can enjoy the incredible amla benefits, click on the button below to learn more!

The World's Most Powerful Antioxidant Tastes Terrible. 

We Made it Awesome.

Click below to learn more about how you can get your hands on Amla Green™ today.

Amla Green

References

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About the author 

Cyrus Khambatta, PhD

Cyrus Khambatta, PhD is a New York Times bestselling co-author of Mastering Diabetes: The Revolutionary Method to Reverse Insulin Resistance Permanently in Type 1, Type 1.5, Type 2, Prediabetes, and Gestational Diabetes.

He is the co-founder of Mastering Diabetes and Amla Green, and is an internationally recognized nutrition and fitness coach who has been living with type 1 diabetes since 2002. He co-created the Mastering Diabetes Method to reverse insulin resistance in all forms of diabetes, and has helped more than 10,000 people improve their metabolic health using low-fat, plant-based, whole-food nutrition, intermittent fasting, and exercise.

Cyrus earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2003, then earned a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 2012. He is the co-author of many peer-reviewed scientific publications.

He is the co-host of the annual Mastering Diabetes Online Summit, a featured speaker at the Plant-Based Nutrition and Healthcare Conference (PBNHC), the American College of Lifestyle Medicine Conference (ACLM), Plant Stock, the Torrance Memorial Medical Center, and has been featured on The Doctors, NPR, KQED, Forks Over Knives, Healthline, Fast Company, Diet Fiction, and the wildly popular podcasts the Rich Roll Podcast, Plant Proof, MindBodyGreen, and Nutrition Rounds.

Scientific Publications:

Sarver, Jordan, Cyrus Khambatta, Robby Barbaro, Bhakti Chavan, and David Drozek. “Retrospective Evaluation of an Online Diabetes Health Coaching Program: A Pilot Study.” American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, October 15, 2019, 1559827619879106. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827619879106

Shrivastav, Maneesh, William Gibson, Rajendra Shrivastav, Katie Elzea, Cyrus Khambatta, Rohan Sonawane, Joseph A. Sierra, and Robert Vigersky. “Type 2 Diabetes Management in Primary Care: The Role of Retrospective, Professional Continuous Glucose Monitoring.” Diabetes Spectrum: A Publication of the American Diabetes Association 31, no. 3 (August 2018): 279–87. https://doi.org/10.2337/ds17-0024

Thompson, Airlia C. S., Matthew D. Bruss, John C. Price, Cyrus F. Khambatta, William E. Holmes, Marc Colangelo, Marcy Dalidd, et al. “Reduced in Vivo Hepatic Proteome Replacement Rates but Not Cell Proliferation Rates Predict Maximum Lifespan Extension in Mice.” Aging Cell 15, no. 1 (February 2016): 118–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.12414

Roohk, Donald J., Smita Mascharak, Cyrus Khambatta, Ho Leung, Marc Hellerstein, and Charles Harris. “Dexamethasone-Mediated Changes in Adipose Triacylglycerol Metabolism Are Exaggerated, Not Diminished, in the Absence of a Functional GR Dimerization Domain.” Endocrinology 154, no. 4 (April 2013): 1528–39. https://doi.org/10.1210/en.2011-1047



Price, John C., Cyrus F. Khambatta, Kelvin W. Li, Matthew D. Bruss, Mahalakshmi Shankaran, Marcy Dalidd, Nicholas A. Floreani, et al. “The Effect of Long Term Calorie Restriction on in Vivo Hepatic Proteostatis: A Novel Combination of Dynamic and Quantitative Proteomics.” Molecular & Cellular Proteomics: MCP 11, no. 12 (December 2012): 1801–14.
https://doi.org/10.1074/mcp.M112.021204





Bruss, Matthew D., Airlia C. S. Thompson, Ishita Aggarwal, Cyrus F. Khambatta, and Marc K. Hellerstein. “The Effects of Physiological Adaptations to Calorie Restriction on Global Cell Proliferation Rates.” American Journal of Physiology. Endocrinology and Metabolism 300, no. 4 (April 2011): E735-745. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.00661.2010




Bruss, Matthew D., Cyrus F. Khambatta, Maxwell A. Ruby, Ishita Aggarwal, and Marc K. Hellerstein. “Calorie Restriction Increases Fatty Acid Synthesis and Whole Body Fat Oxidation Rates.” American Journal of Physiology. Endocrinology and Metabolism 298, no. 1 (January 2010): E108-116.
https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpendo.00524.2009