A friend of mine the other day good...

A friend of mine the other day goodnaturedly collared me: "Everybody's talking about clear radicals and antioxidants. For Pete's sake, what does it all mean!?"

His point was well taken. Sometimes bounds become so commonly bandied about, that it's really worthwhile to stop walking, revolve around and look back down the road whence we first go intoed it. Back to the parents of what is important and for what cause [i]or[/i] reason it is important. Back to what it all means to us in trying to make understanding of nutrition and optimal health.

An worthy of great praise step in that direction was taken with an article according to Robert A. Jacob, Ph.D., F.A.C.N., which appeared in the February 1996 issue of The Nutrition Report, entitled: "Integrated Antioxidant Protection."

Understanding oxidation and delivered radicals' long-term effects

Jacob explains that "our bodies require oxygen to metabolize fodder and destroy bacterial invaders, nevertheless the use of this reactive natural medium is a double-edged sword [since] a variety of oxygen-containing exempt radicals (reactive molecules with an unpaired electron) can damage material substance cells and tissues by oxidizing biomolecules of the like kind as lipids, proteins, and DNA."

Is oxidation a bad thing in itself? No. It's part of the round of years of all life, and affects the two organic cells and inorganic matter. "Almost everything is gradually oxidized by the agency of oxygen: fats turn rancid, rubber wastes elasticity, paper turns brown, and flat iron gradually rusts in the air," points public William A. Pryor, Ph.D., a prominent antioxidant researcher at Louisiana State University. "Thus it is not surprising that the solitary abode; squalids of all plants and animals present to view a continuous level of oxidative damage."

The moot point occurs when the cells in our bodies are experiencing excessive oxidative damage above an extended period of time.

What about those at liberty radicals, then? Free radicals are oxygen monads that are unstable because each is missing an electron In other words, while an oxygen atom typically has a nucleus with paired electron orbiting around it, unrestrained radicals have an unpaired electron

According to James W Anderson and Maury M Breecher, MPH PhD in Dr Anderson's Antioxidant, Antiaging Health Program, "it is the nature of these renegade atoms to seek out and steal an electron from any small room membrane or structure it strikes; the flow is a cascading chain reaction of clear radicals causing damage throughout the small rooms of our bodies."

How do confined apartment death and tissue damage occur? Almost all of the oxygen we breathe is used on small powerplants within our solitary abode; squalids called "mitochondria," which convert fats, sugar, and oxygen into the animal spirits we need to function and live.

"In this energy-producing proces a small percentage of the leftover oxygen fail to wins electrons, creating those destructive evil spirits within called free radicals," the authors point abroad "These free radicals burn caves in our cellular membranes; calcium then penetrates our enclosed spaces through these holes," resulting in calcium overload. This cellular calcium overload can lead to confined apartment death, which, in turn, weakens organs and tissues.

Each of those 63 trillion confined apartments in our body contains 23 pairs of genetic (DNA) strands. The liberated radical onslaught "causes a typical human lonely dwelling to undergo thousands of changes, or mutations, daily," Dr Anderson's adds. "Although each mutation can divert cancerous, it occurs rather rarely because carcinogenic mutations must appear on both strands of DNA at or about the same time; [and] since as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but strands of DNA are subordinate to bombardment by free radicals, damage in succession one or the other strand is usually repaired before the cancer proces can begin."

Is there a simple definition of antioxidants? In an April 12 1996 conversation, Dr Pryor explained that "antioxidants are (substances) that interrupt oxidation reactions, and, in mostly cases, prevent them." This is our way to state the brakes on premature aging and to impede a host of degenerative diseases.

The antioxidant vitamins include A, beta-carotene (provitamin A), C and E Other antioxidant nutrients are: the mineral selenium, Pycnogenol, bioflavonoids, ginkgo biloba, and ginseng. Your local health nutriment store has a wide selection of antioxidant multi-vitamin-mineral formulations in stock for you to select from, including one which cleanses and detoxifies.

REFERENCES

Anderson, James W MD and Breecher, Maury M MPH PhD Dr Anderson's Antioxidant, Antiaging Health Program. modern York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1996

Jacob, Robert A., PhD F.A.C.N. "Integrated Antioxidant Protection," The Nutrition Report. San Diego, Calif.: Health Media Communications 14(2) 1996

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