We all know how popular berries are these days and how power packed they are with antioxidants – free radicals’ worst nightmare. But there’s another berry making waves you may or may not have heard of. It’s so popular, in fact, it could very well overtake the mighty blueberry’s popularity.

It’s called the acai berry (pronounced ah-sigh-EE, not ack-eye) and it’s a berry that’s reached stardom, featured on health and nutrition segments of talk show host divas Oprah Winfrey and Rachael Ray. Despite its increasing popularity, however, you’re not likely to see it stocked on supermarket produce shelves any time soon – not in the raw form, anyway.

One of the reasons for this is that it’s found predominantly in the nether regions of Brazil’s Amazon rain forest, but the primary reason is because it’s not the type of berry one pops into his or her mouth as a snack. Ninety percent of the berry is pit, but the 10 percent that’s edible contains some of the most potent cancer-fighting compounds found in any fruit anywhere.

As such, one can easily find acai juices in health stores anywhere in the country, as acai is increasingly becoming a mainstream nutritional supplement. And it’s not hard to understand why, not when it’s believed to have 10 times the amount of antioxidants content compared to blueberries – despite having far less pulp than the average blueberry – not to mention being naturally rich in quality carbohydrates, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, even omega-3 fatty acids.

But is the acai berry all talk and no walk? After all, it’s not like there have never been foods billed as being the new “miracle” food or diet, only to be castoff as an overhyped fraud down the road (remember the grapefruit diet?). Well, if the acai berry’s richness in antioxidants and other nutrients of are as high as said to be – and there’s no reason to doubt that they aren’t – they’re definitely reaching the body’s cells. We know that now after a team of researchers from Texas A&M University confirmed the body absorbs the nutrients of the acai berry.

They came to this conclusion after giving volunteers acai pulp and acai juice to drink and then tested their blood and urine samples after their drink to see if there was any discrepancy in the levels of antioxidant activity (obviously, they tested their blood and urine samples before the study for comparative purposes). Twelve hours after consuming the drinks indicated increased antioxidant activity in all the participants’ blood and urine samples; even 24 hours later there was increased activity.

The health benefit claims of the acai berry run the gamut, including – but not limited to – minimizing cancer risk, strengthening the body’s immune system, assisting the liver in cleansing toxins from the body, slowing the aging process, even increasing one’s libido. Many of these claims have yet to be scientifically tested, however. Texas A&M research hope to rectify this issue in the coming months and years as the acai berry won’t be going anywhere any time soon. If anything, acai berry-infused drinks are bound to pop up on supermarket shelves, mom and pop shops, even restaurant menu offerings.