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While scientists search our genome to unlock the doors of longevity, we've had one of the keys all along. "Studies are lending scientific weight to what mothers have told us for years," says Dr. Paula Bickford, at the University of South Florida Center for Aging and Brain Repair. "Eat your fruits and vegetables. They're good for you!"

Evidence is mounting that certain foods can help prevent or relieve disorders that include heart disease, cancer and even Alzheimer's disease. Fruits and vegetables head the list, but tea, coffee, grape juice and chocolate, as well as wine and beer, may also help. Their disease-fighting power comes from natural chemicals known as antioxidants, including vitamins C and E, trace elements like selenium and many less familiar compounds. They work by protecting us from the effects of chemicals known as free radicals - highly reactive substances we produce while metabolizing energy, breathing and digesting our food. When a bit of protein, fat, or DNA is attacked by a free radical, it no longer functions properly in the cell.

The only way to counteract the effects of free radicals is to destroy them, and that's where antioxidants come in. In one study, scientists report that free radicals trigger a key step in the plaque formation that can drive heart attacks. That plaque formation could be blocked with an antioxidant called lutein found in spinach, red pepper and other vegetables.

Other antioxidants can help as well. Tea is rich in a family of antioxidants called polyphenols. In a study of heart-attack patients at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Kenneth Mukamal and co-workers found that patients who drank two or more cups of tea each day had a 44 percent lower risk of dying from any cause over the next four years than patients who did not drink tea.

In yet another study, Martha Clare Clark of the Rush Institute for Healthy Aging found that people over 65 whose diets included the most vitamin E in foods had only about one third as much chance of developing Alzheimer's as those with the least. The scientists also found that vitamin E protected against the milder cognitive decline that afflicts many who escape full-blown Alzheimer's.

Finally, according to Frederick Ferris at the National Eye Institute, in Bethesda, Md., patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) were about 25 percent less likely to develop more severe diseases when taking vitamins E and C, beta carotene - another antioxidant - and zinc. Despite all the good news, few doctors are ready to prescribe megadoses of antioxidants. "There was a wave of enthusiasm about 10 years ago," explains Dr. Eric Rimm, a Harvard epidemiologist who specializes in this field. "We thought vitamin E was a magic pill that would reduce everybody's risk of heart disease. It turned out to be more complicated than that."

For example, although lutein appears to ward off heart disease, in a study of more than 20,000 people, Oxford University cardiologist Roy Collins found that vitamin E, beta carotene and vitamin C had no effect on the risk of heart attack or stroke in patients already taking cholesterol-lowering drugs. In fact, antioxidants interfere with some of the most popular anti-cholesterol medications. And sometimes, antioxidants can be downright harmful. Scientists at the University of Washington found that smokers who took beta carotene and vitamin A had more risk of developing lung cancer than those who did not.

Yet most health professionals have come to believe that getting enough antioxidants, especially through fruits and vegetables, is one of the best things we can do for our health. "Everyone can benefit from eating more fruits and vegetables," comments Dr. Harvey Arbesman, a dermatologist at the State University of New York at Buffalo, who has found that antioxidants help prevent some kinds of skin cancer. Red wine delivers antioxidants including resveratrol, which raises the drinker's level of beneficial HDL cholesterol. However, purple grape juice may do almost as well, without the alcohol. Ripe, red tomatoes are loaded with beta-carotene, lutein and lycopene, an extremely potent antioxidant. Spinach is a top source of lutein as well as zeaxanthin, a related antioxidant. According to food chemist Shiow Y. Wang and colleagues at USDA's Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, in Maryland, pound for pound oregano has up to 30 times the radical-fighting power of potatoes and 40 times that of apples.

Will stocking up on tomatoes and spinach really give us an easy route to better health? "I am confident that antioxidants have benefit in the diet," concludes Harvard's Dr. Rimm. "They have great potential. It's just that we have to figure out how each one works and where each antioxidant fits into the picture."

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