Common, Colorful And Really Good For Your Brain: UGA Researchers Study Plant Pigments

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April 5th, 2019

“Carotenoids, in general, when we eat them, they are antioxidants, so they do a great job of keeping our bodies healthy and free of oxygenated damage,” says Lisa Renzi-Hammond, one of the University of Georgia researchers looking at the effect of lutein and zeaxanthin.

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Carotenoids are plant pigments. They make tomatoes red and give carrots their distinctive orange hue. You see them when leaves change colors in the fall. But carotenoids are not just decorative.

Among the roughly 600 carotenoids in nature, two in particular, lutein and zeaxanthin, have been found to improve the function of the human brain, according to researchers at the University of Georgia.

“Carotenoids, in general, when we eat them, they are antioxidants, so they do a great job of keeping our bodies healthy and free of oxygenated damage,” says Lisa Renzi-Hammond, one of the researchers looking at the effect of lutein and zeaxanthin.

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