Fruit and vegetables increase erythrocyte glutathione peroxidase activity and resistance of plasma lipoproteins to oxidation more efficiently than do the vitamins and minerals that fruit and vegetables are known to contain. Plasma protein carbonyl formation at lysine residues increases because of the vitamins and minerals in fruit and vegetables.

SummaryHydrolysis of β-lactoglobulin B (β-lg B) by pepsin, a process slow at ambient conditions, is facilitated at a moderately high hydrostatic pressure such as 300 MPa, corresponding to an apparent volume of activation ΔV# = −63 ml mol−1 at pH 2·5, 30 °C and Γ/2=0·16. Digestion of β-lg by trypsin and thermolysin is likewise enhanced by pressure, and the pressure effect has been traced to pressure denaturation of β-lg B, which by high-pressure fluorescence spectroscopy has been shown to have a large negative volume of reaction, ΔV° = −98 ml mol−1, at pH 6·7, 30 °C and Γ/2 = 0·16. Pressure denaturation is only slowly reversed following release of pressure and the enhanced digestibility is maintained at ambient pressure for several hours.