EDNPro.com

Antioxidants can prevent or slow the damage to our cells caused by “oxidative stress.”  When you breathe in oxygen, your expose your body to the potentially deadly process called “oxidation.”  When your body cells use oxygen, the naturally-occurring by-products are “free radicals.”  Free radicals can damage cells.  Antioxidants act as scavengers of free radicals.  As scavengers, antioxidants offer protection from damaging effects of free radicals by deactivating free radicals in the body, neutralizing their effects and preventing cell damage, thereby reducing your risk for disease and slowing the aging process. Oxidation causes damage to healthy tissue on a cellular level and results in aging and decreased health.  Diseases believed to be caused by such free-radical damages include cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and macular degeneration.  Your body’s ability to produce antioxidants are controlled by genetic makeup and influenced by your exposure to environmental factors such as toxic chemicals, like produced by smoking, and nutrient deficient diets.  Changes in today’s lifestyles which include more environmental pollution and poor quality of diets, means we are exposed to more free radicals then ever.  Your body’s internal production of antioxidants is not enough to neutralize or deactivate all the free radicals. Thus, it is important that you help your body defend itself by increasing the antioxidant nutrients through diet; with our nutrient-deficient diets, whole-food dietary supplements are essential for good health.

What are “free radicals” ?

Free radicals are unstable and highly reactive cells in the body because they lack an electron and are continually scavenging other healthy cells for replacement.  Unless they are stopped, these free radicals will steal electrons from healthy cells, leaving a trail of damaged and unhealthy cells in their trail and creating a chain reaction of dangerous cell mutations. When a cell becomes unhealthy or mutates the result is cellular dysfunction, damage, chronic disease, aging and even premature death.

Free radical activity is expected to produce damage that accumulates with age throughout the body.  This is “normal” and relatively common.  However, coupled with genetic and environmental factors, this “normal” damage can manifest as diseases at certain ages.  Two of the leading causes of death, cancer and atherosclerosis, are salient “free radical diseases.”

“Oxidative stress” puts us at even more risk.

Oxidative stress occurs when we are exposed to above-average levels of free radicals from such things as environmental toxins such as tobacco smoke, environmental chemicals and pesticides, contaminants in our air and water, radiation and dietary trans fats. Even exercise and sunlight exposure can increase our free radical exposure. Our ability to fight oxidative damage decreases and can be affected by our diet and lifestyle factors, including our stress levels, overall health and sleeping habits.

How key nutrients fight free radicals.

According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Research Council (NRC), less than one in every 10 adults consumes the five-serving minimum of fruits and vegetables each day. Key nutrients found in high quality antioxidants and vitamins from fresh, whole food fruit and vegetables not only bolster your immune health, they fight oxidative stress and cellular damage caused by scavenging free radicals. Long-term free radical damage can compromise your systems internally as well as contribute to wrinkles, fine lines, age-spots and wrinkles.

What does the immune system have to do with free radicals?

Our immune system works as a defense network protecting the body from dangerous pathogens, toxins, cellular mutations and other potential hazards. The immune system is also responsible for helping repair damaged cells and tissues (free-radical damage), heal the body and restore balance to body functions.

Compromised or suppressed immune function is common and can be fatal. Some of the causes include exposure to environmental toxins such as chemicals, pesticides, pollutants; free-radical damage; some prescription drugs; poor dietary habits; stress; strenuous physical activity; and chronic low-grade infections. Consequences of exposure to such elements can take many years to emerge, but the consequences of a compromised immune system can lead to genetic mutations, such as those that lead to malignant tumors.

What’s the connection between antioxidants, the immune system, and cellular mutation or free radical damage?

Cell mutation originates at the cellular level, causing DNA damage. A damage or mutated cell can act dysfunctionally to damage other cells by multiply at an abnormal rate rather than duplicating as healthy cells. Antioxidants can offer protection from free-radical damage by deactivating free radicals, neutralizing their effects and preventing cell damage and consequently reducing the risk for disease. We know that the body contains thousands of mutated cells that are capable of causing cancer, but somehow all of them do not. Some cancerous cells are appropriately detected and destroyed by the immune cells, but for reasons not clearly understood, it is believed that some cancerous cells are able to avoid detection by immune cells and even deactivate and destroy immune cells leading to cancerous tumors. Antioxidants can protect from the effects of free-radical damage by preventing the damage, but when cells are mutated, the immune system is the next defense.