Free Radicals, Oxidative Stress, and Anti-Oxidants
Please watch this video, as it will be hard to understand the text without it!
What Are Free Radicals?
Free radicals are molecules that are responsible for oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is the process that makes rust appear on a car or an apple rot to its core. Oxidative stress is cellular damage from these free radicals. More specifically, free radicals are atoms that have an uneven number of electrons
Now as we take a trip down memory lane to high school science classes, we once learned about atoms. Atoms are made of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Atoms love to have even number of electrons and this makes an atom really happy. When they lose one they become quite angry. Like many of us they really want what they don't have, so they try to just take what they want by stealing electrons from other molecules to feel whole again. This creates more free radicals that are also looking for their electrical soul mate, which creates a chain reaction that can lead to the damage of cell membranes, proteins, and ultimately the destruction of the DNA within each cell. When this process occurs frequently it leads to higher levels of oxidative stress within our bodies and ultimately more cellular damage.
Oxidative Stress = Cellular Damage from Free Radicals
Oxidative Stress is the imbalance between creation of free radicals and your body's ability to neutralize or get rid of them
How does it develop in the body?
Occurs in little amounts while you breath so can't really avoid that one..
And it also happens due to cellular breakdown. Cells are destroyed and reproduced within our body every single day
Poor nutrition
UV rays/radiation exposure
Stress
Pollution
Toxic substances like alcohol and cigarette smoke
Oxidative Stress & Disease
You may be thinking...this is all great Mitch making me remember the horrors of high school chemistry, but what's the point of all this? Oxidative stress is actually linked to nearly 100 different disease processes in the human body. Some of these include:
Specific types of cancer especially skin cancer
Heart disease
Increase aging process with more prominent wrinkles and aging spots
Alzheimer's
Autoimmune diseases
How To Stop Free Radicals? - Antioxidants
Absolutely essential for us to live. Without antioxidants, free radicals would overwhelm and destroy all of our cells
Going back to the chemistry for a sec..antioxidants are very stable molecules that don't mind giving up their electrons. They neutralize free radicals by donating one electron to the unstable free radical in order to stop the chain reactions
Our bodies produces some antioxidants on its own, but not enough. Adding antioxidants helps alleviate oxidative stress preventing disease and decreasing the aging process
Where can we find these beautiful molecules? In food specifically in fruits and veggies. Just think every carrot you eat may make you look an hour younger, so that's motivation! Best/ Essential antioxidants are Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Beta Carotene, and Selenium just to name a few. Again some foods that contain high amounts of antioxidants are
Fruits - strawberries, blueberries,
Veggies - carrots, spinach, broccoli
Other - green tea, fish, garlic, sweet potatoes just to name a few
