What are Antioxidants?
by admin
In recent years, you can not go for long without hearing someone talking about antioxidants. It seems to be the craze in healthy living, but does anyone really know what antioxidants are or what they do? Antioxidants actually are important in helping your body to fight off and to avoid illness. Your body creates something called free radicals which lead to heart problems, cancer, and numerous other health concerns. Free radicals are created by a molecular process called oxidation. Antioxidants fight this process and prevent free radical formation.
Antioxidants can’t eliminate oxidation, because oxidation is simply part of life. Antioxidants, more so, provide a balance to your bodies processes. They prevent over oxidation or oxidative stress. Does oxidative stress cause diseases or is it the result of diseases? The answer to that question is yet to be determined with any confidence. It is, however known that oxidative stress does cause cells to die or become significantly damaged.
Your brain cells are the most vulnerable to damage from oxidation. You will be doing a lot to decrease your chances of things like Alzheimer’s disease if you are consuming foods which are high in antioxidants. Antioxidants are even used in medications to treat injury and illness associated with the brain. This is especially true in medications used for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and even stroke.
When you exercise, you increase your oxygen intake, as well as your metabolism. Because of this your oxidation process is increased, but is essential in repairing your body from exercise damage. Due to this fact, you need to avoid excess antioxidant consumption, so that your body is not prevented from healing itself. Your body’s repair process peaks approximately 5 days after you exercise.
Antioxidant supplements are available, but antioxidants are prevalent in your everyday foods. Recently, blueberries and green tea are a popular source of antioxidants, but they can be found in so many more products. Vitamin A is an essential antioxidant, and can be found in fruits and vegetables like carrots, cantaloupe and broccoli. Vitamin C is another important antioxidant and is prevalent in citrus fruits like oranges or grape fruit, as well as things like strawberries, lettuce, spinach or green peppers. Vitamin E and Selenium are also both antioxidants which are important for you to consume. Vitamin E can be found in things like lettuce or almonds. Selenium is found in fish, chicken and eggs to name a few sources. Sources of antioxidants are numerous and you are likely consuming sufficient amounts of antioxidants without even trying to do so. If you try to track your consumption of antioxidants, you will see that you are not low in that consumption.
Antioxidants are used in preserving foods as well, because exposure to oxygen and ultraviolet light are the biggest source of decomposition of anything. Food sitting out on the counter of your kitchen is going to go bad much more quickly than the food sitting in the sealed refrigerator. For this reason, antioxidants are used to slow the oxidation process affecting your food.