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Staying Young with Antioxidants

Increasingly people are becoming aware of antioxidants and their potential positive role in helping people "Stay Young." While the largest wave of attention is focused on nutritional supplements, antioxidants claims are being made on everything from breakfast cereals to hand lotions and beyond. To understand the role of antioxidants play in your body we first need to understand the "free radical enemy" they are intended to fight.

Free Radicals Defined

Free radicals were first identified in 1900 by Moses Gomberg. They are individual molecules that for various reasons are lacking one or more electron, which in turn makes them highly volatile. This volatility may last just milliseconds, until they are able to strip a way an electron from a neighboring molecule.

The damage occurs when the molecule that lost the electron changes its chemical character as a result of the lost electron(s). Within an individual cell in your body, be it a heart cell, or lung cell, or skin cell you have a huge number of molecules. So the loss of one or two isn't a big deal, but over a lifetime, the constant assault of free radicals on the make up of your tissues is directly tied to the processes we experience as aging.

Where do these free radicals come from?

Well the vast majority come from natural body processes of burning oxygen within each cell in little furnaces called mitochondria. The body takes the oxygen we breathe, and carries it to the cells in the blood stream. There it is absorbed into each and every cell in your body, and it is used as fuel to help each cell fulfill its role in our bodies. When our immune systems are fully functioning, and when we have a well balance diet with adequate levels of vitamins and other phyto-chemicals and antioxidants in our system, the body naturally neutralizes the majority of thse free radicals.

If we are stressed, exposed to toxins from the outside environment or our systems are undermined by disease, these antioxidant good guy forces can become overwhelmed. And out bodies suffer free radical damage. Its as if we suffer thousands to tens of thousands of very tiny cuts. All microscopic, but all adding up over the years and decades.

Our heredity, tends to provide some people with good genes that protect some parts of out body quite well. Just which parts vary by genetics. And while some systems may have superior protection, others may have less protection. Its thought that these less protected systems are the ones that suffer the most damage and become diagnosed as a degenerative disease like rheumatoid arthritis, or Chrons disease, or cancer, etc.

Antioxidants to the rescue.

Antioxiants are essentially molecules that have excess electrons that they can freely give to quench free radicals looking for a charge.

When they are present in the cell in adequate numbers, they can dampen the free radicals like water on fire. But if there aren't enough in the right place, the free radicals will find one where ever it can. Be it from part of your DNA within the cell, or other functioning parts of the cell. Its like a spark from an unprotected fireplace escaping and burning a tiny hole in the rug. One might not matter much, but after a while the damage is evident.

Antioxidants can help you look younger, live longer, and be at your optimum health.

Foods rich in antioxidants like fruits and vegetables can give you protection from coronary heart diseases, and age-related diseases like Alzheimer's disease.

Antioxidants can also strengthen our immune resistance to diseases such as influenza and other bacterial and viral infections.

These substances also reduce a person's risk of acquiring cancer. Antioxidants also prevent glaucoma and the age-related degeneration of our macula, the part of the eye that is dedicated for superior acuity vision.

Antioxidants are also extremely valuable in keeping out bodies largest organ, our skin healthy and youthful looking.

Carotenoids, zinc, selenium, and the Vitamins A, C, and E are some of the main antioxidants. Glutathione is said to be the most powerful among all forms of antioxidants. These are naturally present in our body since we were young but depletes as we get older. They need to be supplemented by diet and many recommend high potency supplements to provide additional protective support well beyond that possible from diet alone.

If antioxidant supplements are not your style, you may want to incorporate foods with high levels of antioxidants. Some o fthe so called super fruits like blueberries and Strawberries and plums are excellent sources.

The battle to stay young looking and feeling, as well as to live a long life is fought in tiny skirmishes at the molecular level or our bodies. The science of molecular biology is making great strides in understanding some of these processes, but there is still much to learn. In the meanwhile, understanding the value of a diet rich in antioxidants remains out best hope of staying young as we grow older. It may also be the key to growing older healthy as well.