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How Antioxidants Work and Why Antioxidants are Good For Your Health

Posted by Admin on Friday, April 09, 2010 - 03:55 AM

Antioxidants work in tremendous and miraculous ways to make you feel and look younger, to make you live longer, and to help you stay healthy overall. Antioxidants work by eliminating everything bad for your body and replacing damaged cells with newer and younger cells. If you want to find out how you can make antioxidants work for you, then you are in the right place!

When trying to reach all of your health goals, antioxidants should be an essential part of your diet. Antioxidants can help you stay looking young and stay feeling young by preserving and protecting your health. Antioxidants are known for: reducing/slowing the effects of aging, preventing/reducing risk of cardiovascular diseases/complications, and reducing one’s risk for cancers.

How do antioxidants work?

Antioxidants fight off free radicals, which are essentially damaged cells. Free radicals are: Free radicals are cells that have a missing electron, and therefore are unstable. The free radical cells begin to attack the other cells, in an attempt to gain back their missing electron. This process damages living, healthy cells because this process turns them into radical cells too. Also, the more free radicals made, the worse the effects are going to be.

Free radicals are normally found throughout the body due to our metabolism, immune system, or environmental factors (smoking, pollution, radiation, etc.). Our body can handle these free radicals easily with antioxidants, but if the amount of free radicals is extremely high (as in elders) or if our antioxidant intake is too low, then we can develop diseases, get viruses, and see the effects of aging.

If we increase our antioxidant intake, we can decrease the amount of free radical cells in our body. Antioxidants work to neutralize the free radicals by donating them an electron, making them a stable cell again. So essentially, antioxidants are a cure for free radical cells.

Antioxidants do not become free radical cells even though they donated an electron because they are stable even with a missing electron.

How does eliminating the free radicals help?

Aging Side effects

As we age, the cell division process takes longer inside our bodies. The wrinkled look we develop is due to too many free radical cells, and not enough healthy, young cells.

Viruses and diseases

Free radicals cause damage to the immune system and organs in our bodies, particularly smokers or people exposed to radiation. By eliminating free radicals our immune system is not as busy, plus we prevent damage being done from the free radicals.

Cancer

If the free radicals were to stay, they would be considered abnormal cells. Abnormal cells have the potential to develop into cancer cells. So by eliminating the free radical cells, we are preventing the cancer from ever forming, or it could also slow the process down.

Foods that are good sources for antioxidants are the following:

• Berries (acai berries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, etc.)
• Vegetables (Broccoli, cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, carrots, etc.)
• Whole grains (some cereals, oats, some breads, etc.)
• Fruits (apples, prunes, plums, apricots, watermelon, mangos, oranges, etc.)
• Nuts, oils, and spices (soy, almonds, parsley, garlic, etc.)
• Drinks such as green tea, black tea, and red wine

It is important to remember that while the foods listed above have great sources of antioxidants, they each contain different types of antioxidants. To achieve the best results you will want to eat a variety of the foods listed above, so that all antioxidants are available to your body to keep you healthy!