Should You Buy Antioxidant Supplements for a Start?
There are a lot of health conscious people who spend time and money researching and buying antioxidant supplements for the simple reason that they want the benefits that antioxidants can provide for their health. The list of benefits we derive from antioxidants is impressive and totally legitimate. The problem is that simply taking antioxidant supplements will not do the whole job.
The Role of Antioxidants
One most coins there are two sides – heads and tails. On the health coin, these opposing sides are made up of antioxidants on one side and on the other – free radicals. Think of them as good electrons gone bad. To understand the role of one – lets look first at what free radicals do.
The body has a system of organs like your heart, lungs and liver which perform certain specific functions, every one of which is essential for your health. The organs are made up of living tissue and the tissue is made up of cells literally trillions of them. The cells are composed of molecules which are themselves composed of atoms which have neutrons, protons and electrons. The electrons of most atoms are in pairs and the paired structure is essential for them to remain stable. If, for some reason, an atom loses an electron (and it happens all the time) a free radical is formed. The atom will steal an electron from another atom. When this happens, a new atom- which is part of a molecule, in its turn, becomes unstable (a free radical) and is off to steal another electron from somewhere else.
As you can imagine, a chain reaction occurs, that left unchecked will damage the structure of the cell. When this happens, the tissue of an organ gets cluttered up with a lot of damaged cells which left long enough will impair the function of the organ.
Antioxidants are molecules containing atoms that can donate an electron to a free radical and will either remain stable without it or will become too weak to steal an electron from another atom. Regardless why, the chain reaction is stopped and the antioxidant has protected the cell. Bruce Ames, a well known scientist studying antioxidants estimated that a cell will be hit up to 10,000 times daily by a free radical looking to steal an electron. And to put that into perspective consider the trillions of cells in our bodies.
This attack by free radicals contributes to (and some will say primarily causes) many of the acute and chronic diseases that we associate with aging. Alzheimers disease, acute and chronic inflammation, coronary disease, cancer, type II diabetes, Parkinsons disease, rheumatoid arthritis and some types of dementia have all been traced back to free radical damage. And thats not the full list.
I believe that it’s really important to reduce your own production of free radicals and up your level of antioxidants and making a decision to buy antioxidants is one thing you can do. But it isn’t the whole picture. You should also:
1- Clean up your act. It’s hard to correct the damage when you’re still causing it so this would be a good time to reduce the creation of free radicals and there are many things you can do to help. Some things to avoid would be smoking and second hand smoke, air and water pollution, junk food and an absence of good foods, substance abuse and even too much exercise.
2- Improve your diet. Eat more vegetables and eat more fruit. Which ones? This list is long but think green foods and think blue foods. Think raw and fresh.
3- Research the best quality antioxidant supplements you can find and add them to your health plan. Vitamins C and E are almost universally available with Cordyceps and Resveratrol almost as easy to find.
4- Take Glutathione precursors. Your levels of Glutathione – the Master Antioxidant fall as you age. But you can’t get a good benefit from a Glutathione supplement. since it’s actually manufacturered in your body, your best bet is to use a Glutathione Precursor like MAXGXL is actually manufactured by your body. This is an extremely important antioxidant and to help your body overcome the natural production declines that come with aging, you can eat foods like asparagus and broccoli
