Guarana and long-haul flights and jet leg

How long-haul flyers benefit from the energy-seed of the Amazon.

Guarana, with its world-wide reputation as a natural stimulant for the fast-living party-set, is back again. This ancient energy-giving food is not only great when vitality is low and emotional tone is depressed, but it has helped many through the murky burden of jet-lag.

 “New research is showing important benefits in another area connected with the dangers inherent in  long-haul flights”, says Graeme Lewis of Rio Health, the British pioneers of the Energy Seed of the Amazon. “It has to do with blood clots and the dangers of DVT.”

At the University of Cincinnatti in the United States a research project on Guarana found that Guarana has the ability to ‘thin the blood’, much as daily aspirin does, but without the deleterious side effects for the stomach and intestinal tract. Graeme Lewis again: “Platelet aggregation is the proper term for the clots that can occur not only in older people, but in other groups — for instance passengers on long haul flights who are at risk of DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis). Guarana not only helps to prevent the aggregation of blood corpuscles, but also can de-aggregate groups that have already formed.”

These American findings became the basis of a US patent, and they confirm an earlier report by a doctor at the Copenhagen State Hospital, who gave Guarana to hospital staff — particularly night staff — and not only measured higher energy levels  throughout duty periods but also lower levels of fibrinogen, fibrous matter that can form in the blood and which is associated with stress and stroke.

Guarana is a small nut-like seed that grows naturally high in the canopy of the Rainforest on lengthy vines that reach up from the forest floor. Nowadays the vine has been hybridised to a straggly bush and it is grown in plantations along the lower reaches of the Amazon, and down to the coasts of Bahia.

The actives in the seed are a combination of caffeine, theobromine and theophylline, and these are associated with tannins and saponins — Paullinia cupana is a member of the soapwood family, the Sapindaceae. On a per gram basis the caffeine level in Guarana is higher than in either tea or coffee, which has led to a widespread denigration of and distrust of Guarana. This is unfounded. While the weight for weight comparison appears striking, in fact the daily usage of Guarana at 1 gram (giving 35mg of caffeine) is considerably lower than the amount in one cup of tea (usually around 70mg) or one cup of coffee, which can present the body with up to 200mg of caffeine. That is not all. Both coffee and tea are water soluble, which means that the actives enter the bloodstream extremely fast causing, in some cases, hot sweats, tremors and palpitations. Not so with Guarana, which is rich in oily saponins. These prevent the quick take-up of the active ingredients, and require the body to digest the molecules in a form of natural time-release.

“The new Guarana harvest has been brought in on the plantations along the Amazon River,” says Graeme Lewis. “and the world is looking again at Guarana, not just as a superb energy tonic, but also for its use in the potentially dangerous conditions of intercontinental jet travel. Thousands of Brazilians take Guarana onto the aircraft for jet-lag, and now they have another reason.”

Rio Amazon Guarana is the acknowledged leader in the field, and a new generation is turning on to Guarana again. Drivers, athletes, busy mums, students, and the retired are returning to this simple, but multi-facetted  herb and taking advantage of its many benefits.

Rio Amazon Guarana is available as capsules, tablets or pure seed powder (suitable for vegetarians), and also in the dynamic BUZZ GUM, a chewing gum that gives you a great lift, and which is ideal for drivers.There is a fabulous and delicious fruit and herbal drink called Guarana Breeze, and a wicked alcoholic elixir that offers Guarana seed powder macerated in Mistilla wine with wheatgerm oil.