Understanding Antioxidants And Free Radicals
Introduction
For hundreds of years, people have searched for the proverbial Fountain of Youth. How can you stay as young as you get older? Many have tried different methods to maintain that youthful look, and most of them have involved plastic surgery or elixirs that do not work and leave a lot to be desired.
Getting older is a fact of life. How you age is up to you. Plastic surgery is the go-to solution for many people, but it only works outside your body. While you can get a facelift or a tummy tuck to lift and flatten the exterior, your inner workings are still aging and sometimes at a faster rate than the outside.
As much as you care about the outside of your body, it is the inside that tells the tale. Older people are living longer, and some younger folks are dying. What gives?
The answer could lie in how we treat our bodies inside and out. It is a package deal. Our bodies work as a whole machine.
There are reasons why our bodies age and how some people are genuinely growing older gracefully to the tune of 100 years or more. The tools to accomplish this have been in front of us all the time.
In this report, you will learn about free radicals and how they affect our bodies. You will also discover that antioxidants protect our cells and are charged with fighting the damage done by free radicals and turning back the biological clock to keep us healthy.
FREE RADICALS
What are free radicals?
The name sounds like a group of people at a peace rally. But, these little chemical elements are less than peaceful. They affect the internal environment and change our bodies for the worst.
We have two ages for our bodies. Have you ever seen those shows that ask people to guess someone’s age? Their appearance reflects the way they have been treating their bodies and makes them seem older to others. This is the biological age of your body.
How old you are is your chronological age. Specific activities that we participate in can make us look a lot older than our chronological age. Age is truly just a number in these cases.
Free radicals are responsible for how rapidly we age. What are free radicals? They are by-products of cellular metabolism. On the smallest level, our cells replenish themselves and produce energy to run the body’s processes.
When this happens, individual molecules are left behind. These are called free radicals. They are missing an electron and therefore will go looking for another one somewhere in the body. A molecule in need of an electron is unstable and will latch onto anything with an electron that it can steal away.
Free Radical Damage
The missing electron is the key to what free radicals are after.
They roam around inside your body, looking for another electron. Free radicals steal electrons from cells, DNA, enzymes, and cell membranes.
Removing these electrons changes the composition of the structure that has now lost the electron. Cells are damaged and, therefore, don’t function normally.
Enzymes can’t do their jobs as catalysts for cellular reactions. Changing DNA is always a bad sign. Compromising the cellular membranes’ integrity leaves them vulnerable to attack by viruses, bacteria, and other invaders.
All of these results are caused
by free radical damage. Free radicals are not just by-products of cellular processes. They can be introduced into our bodies from other places. Foreign substances like cigarette or cigar smoke, radiation, drinking alcohol, air, and water pollution, or ingesting artificial products can lead to higher levels of free radicals in the body. Other factors like Drugs and antibiotics, household chemicals, stress, excessive exercise, and UV Rays can affect our bodies’ free radical levels.
Scientists have investigated the idea that free radicals are responsible for many diseases in the body that affect us as we get older. As such, the problems that plague us as we get older result from the free radical damage done to our bodies. Diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases have some of their roots in free radical damage.
The Aging Process
This leads to another question: Are we aging more quickly than before? The answer lies in the number of free radicals in our bodies.
The body has a defense mechanism that helps defend it from free radicals. The body can manage certain levels of free radicals. The body repairs cellular damage.
Sometimes, our bodies can be overcome with too many free radicals, and things go a little haywire.
This condition is called oxidative stress. At this point, we become sick, while free radicals are overtaking our bodies.
This is not an invasion by the body snatchers. The body can reverse the balance with a little antioxidant power.
Ever wonder why some people age more gracefully than others? They have more cellular protection than others, so they don’t fit the preconceived appearance of someone their age. And, isn’t that what we all want?
