Antioxidants: Here to Help Free Radicals Chill Out
By Genevieve Smith
“Antioxidant” is a buzzword these days. You strive to eat more of them. You think they will do you good. But do you know exactly why they’re credited with being a must-have for anyone looking to live a long and healthy life? Antioxidants are not vitamins, they’re not minerals, but they are associated with the nutrients in food. Learn more about what they are and why they’re good for you.
Define Antioxidant
An·ti·ox·i·dant: noun; a substance that inhibits oxidation, that removes potentially damaging oxidizing agents in a living organism.
What does that mean when it comes to you? Let's start with free radicals, which are unstable and highly reactive molecules looking to cause a little chaos. Antioxidants are the perfect partner to a wild free radical, giving them the extra electron they need to calm down and quit their desperate, and sometimes destructive search, for that last electron to complete them. Free radicals far outnumber antioxidants naturally occurring in your body, so you’re best to eat foods containing antioxidants to help calm down these poor, frazzled little free radicals.
Oxidizing Their Way Through Your Universe
What do antioxidants do once in your body? Let’s take a look.
-
Protect the heart - Antioxidants help lower the risk of heart disease by decreasing the free radicals available to oxidize LDL cholesterol (lovingly termed the “bad kind” of cholesterol). Oxidized LDL can burrow into artery walls, which can catalyze an army of white blood cells to dispatch. There to feast on the LDL, the scene turns into a frothy mess of fatty “foam cells,” which eventually become plaque and narrow arteries. Fun!
-
Protect DNA - Carotenoids -- the kind of antioxidant found in red, orange and yellow whole foods -- are particularily adept at fighting free radicals knocking down the door of your DNA. Damaged DNA can go haywire and form cancer cells, which are on a mission to reproduce uncontrollably and outlive us all. Eat those carrots, people.
-
Manage diabetes - High blood sugar appears to speed up the production of free radicals, and the destructive molecules may be linked to the not-so-pretty side effects of the disease, including blindness, nerve damage and kidney failure. Antioxidants can help stabilize those free-wheeling free radicals and slow down their damage.
Antioxidants are your friendly, calming force, settling the restless destruction of those poor, incomplete free radicals. Now that you’ve learned more about why those unstable molecules are destructive and how antioxidants can help, look to the rainbow of fresh produce, nuts, seeds and spices to get your antioxidant on. If you need a little help navigating the grocery aisle in the hunt for nutrient-dense foods, read here to learn how a colorful spectrum of food can help you.
To learn more about your health and wellness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Santa Ana, Calif.