What the heck are an Antioxidants and Free Radicals? And why are they fighting?
First let me introduce you to the players and what they stand for.
In society everyone knows what a radical is. You may picture someone who is free to cause damage to society in order to get their point of view across. But too many of these free radicals can do great harm to our society by appearing in large numbers causing it to no longer function in a healthy way.
Our bodies do have some free radicals that arise normally during metabolism and sometimes our body's immune system even purposefully creates them to neutralize viruses and bacteria. But the problem comes when too many of these free radicals gang up on a cell causing it to decay.
Antioxidants discourage the decay and death of our cells.
An Antioxidant is easy to understand when you think of them as a police and medical team standing by waiting to destroy those pesky damaging free radicals running around inside you that are doing damage to your cells.
Environmental factors like pollution, radiation, cigarette smoke and herbicides can spawn too many free radicals. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who hears the word "spawn" and thinks of aliens. LOL. And that's what these particular Free Radicals are like. They are like those extreme protesters who often appear to have been spawned from aliens' and they do damage to everything around them attacking and sapping the life out of everything they come in contact with.
If you are free radical with a healthy purpose, you increase the value of life around you and you're a benefit and not a liability. Antioxidants repair damage and improve the function of your body that too many of these free radicals from our environment have caused.
Antioxidants enter your body when you eat foods that have nutrients in them like beta carotene, vitamins C, and E and selenium. (Selenium is a trace mineral that is an enzyme required only in small amounts for good health.) This classification group is called carotenoids and can be found in: Apricots, broccoli, pumpkin, cantaloupes, spinach, sweet potatoes, and the lycopene in tomatoes. Magnesium, copper and zinc are also good antioxidants
These nutrients can prevent damage to your body's cells or can repair damage that has already occurred from those damaging free radicals.
Think of antioxidants in your body like you would an apple that you slice and want to stop it from turning brown. Once you cut the apple it starts to brown, but if you dip it in orange juice or lemon juice which contains vitamin C, it stays white.
Antioxidants work by slowing or preventing the damage from oxygen that is caused by substances called free radicals that lead to cell dysfunction and problems like heart disease and diabetes.
So if Antioxidants are like a police and medical team to improve your overall health,
What are Free Radicals like?
(REMEMBER...Free radicals are present in all living cells and are a part of natural cell processes. But excessive free radicals in our body can attack the cell membranes which is the outer coating of our cells and cause cell and tissue damage.)
So..... Think of these large numbers of Free Radicals as extreme protesters. We all know that there is usually no harm done during a peaceful protest and having a few radicals running around a controlled situation can even be beneficial to bringing balance. But, if you have ever witnessed an extreme protest out of control I'm sure you have noticed the damage they caused to everything surrounding them. Too many free radicals can cause great harm to innocent bystanders and unbalance our entire way of life. Our cells are like those innocent bystanders that are damaged by extreme numbers of free radicals and without the help of the antioxidant police and medical team we can easily become sick as our bodies become unbalanced by the extreme number of these free radicals.
Our cells are the playing field that these extreme free radicals and antioxidants are fighting over. Our cells are made up of genetic material strands called DNA and an extreme number of free radicals in our body can actually break our DNA strands and allow diseases to enter our body. Normally, our body can handle free radicals, but if antioxidants are unavailable, or if the free-radical production becomes excessive, that's when damage can occur.
Free radical damage does accumulate with age. These free radicals can oxidize cholesterol and lead to plaques that may rupture causing heart attacks or stroke. On average every cell in your body comes under attack from a free radical once every ten seconds.
Eating foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains and nuts can supply all the antioxidants your body needs to repair or slow damages that occur in your cells.
Sorry... Gotta Run!!! Gotta go eat some fruit and veggies and lock up some extreme radicals that are running free!
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