Orange has a bright colored skin; its juicy fresh is sour-sweet and delicious to eat. They come in many varieties but sweet oranges (citrus sinensis) are mostly welcomed. People always bring a pack of oranges when visiting friends or relatives in the hospital.
Oranges are known as the best fruit for disease treatment. They are major sources of vitamin C, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, citrus acid, beta-carotene, aldehyde, and compounds of alcohol ENE group. Hesperidins (a predominant flavonoid in lemons and oranges) are other essential component that makes up the oranges.
The recent clinical experiments had shown that subjects who drank a glass of hesperidins-rich orange juice daily for four weeks has a significant increased in their HDL-Cholesterol level (good cholesterol). Besides that, hesperidins also have significantly increased their folate levels. Folate has shown to cause the decline levels of homocysteine which is an amino acid in the blood believed to give rise of heart disease. Too much homocysteine in the blood (plasma) is also associated with a higher risk of stroke and peripheral vascular disease.
Eat some oranges or drink a glass of orange juice after taking medicine, is proved to enhance the absorption of body towards the medicine. This in turns improves the effect of pharmacodynamics, that is biochemical and physiological effects of medicines.
Oranges is suitable for everyone but make sure that the intake is not exceeded three pieces a day. The best is one orange for one a day. The orange is not suitable to take before meal or empty stomach as the organic acids in the orange can stimulate the secretion of gastric acid which is not good for our stomach. Do not drink milk one hour before or after taking an orange as the protein in milk will be solidified when it meets with acids and hence influencing the digestion.
Orange is sweet and delicious to eat but make sure that you brush your teeth after eating orange to avoid its harmful to oral health. Do not drink water boiled with orange peel as the skin may have contaminated with chemical preservative which is hardly to wash away. Large doses of oranges and other citrus fruits can be carcinogenic. The common symptoms are the skin of limbs may become yellowish; in a serious case, the person may have symptoms like nausea, vomiting, fidgety and sleepiness. These are symptoms called “citrus fruit sickness” or its medical terminology, carotene hyperlipidemia. In most cases, these symptoms require no treatment but you have to stop eating oranges for certain periods.
