Health Benefits of Drinking Orange Juice for Breakfast

If your breakfast is about as healthy as Will Ferrell’s in Elf -- a plate of spaghetti smothered in marshmallows, sprinkles, syrup, and breakfast tarts -- we YOU Docs want you to know you can reverse the damage from sugar-loaded, trans-fatty breakfast foods that dull your brain, wrinkle your skin, cool your passions, clog your arteries, damage your liver, increase your risk of cancer, and make your RealAge older.Phew. You’ve squeezed a remedy right out of us: orange juice!

Turns out the health benefits in just a 300-calorie serving of orange juice douse the fires of inflammation and the oxidizing power of super-evil free radicals that flood your system after eating a 900-calorie, high-fat, high-carb meal. (Think Sausage, Egg & Cheese McGriddles -- 560 calories and 48 grams of carbs -- and two hash browns -- 300 calories and 30g carbs.)

What in orange juice protects you from your worst habits? It's a SWAT team of bioflavonoids that stomp out the free radicals’ cell-rusting damage. (The same chemical reaction turns salad oil rancid and a raw slice of potato brown.)

Tip: Cut calories elsewhere in your diet to balance the added ones from OJ. It’s a small sacrifice to gain the benefits of orange juice's nutrients, such as naringenin, hesperidin, and beta-cryptoxanthin, and to protect your joints from arthritis and your arteries from plaque. Another tip: Go for juice loaded with pulp. It’s got twice as much vitamin C as the peel and 10 times as much as pure juice.