Antioxidants 101

Antioxidants are the body’s anti-aging, disease fighting super-enzymes that protect it from oxidative damage. What is oxidative damage? Think about an apple or avocado turning brown, or rust that forms on metal when it’s left outside for too long–that’s oxidative damage. It’s literally the aging of our cells. Whenever our cells use oxygen they produce harmful by-products called free-radicals. These free-radicals are responsible for the oxidative damage that contributes to the development of numerous health problems including: heart disease, inflammation, atherosclerosis, blood clots, premature aging, bad skin, macular degeneration, diabetes, cancer, DNA damage, and many others. Antioxidants act to neutralize free-radicals and protect our body from the excessive damage that results.

How Do Antioxidants and Free-Radicals Work?

In order to truly understand how antioxidants and free-radicals function, it’s important to understand how they work on the cellular level. Atoms have an outer shell that contains 8 electrons. When this shell is full the atom is stable, when it’s not full (when it has less than 8 electrons) it’s unstable. An atom’s goal is always to be stable. Atoms bond with other unstable atoms by giving, taking, or sharing an electron.

Free-radicals are naturally occurring, unstable oxygen atoms that are missing an electron from their outer shell. Like all other atoms, a free-radical’s goal is to find an electron so that it can become stable. They float around the body searching ruthlessly for healthy cells/molecules that they can steal an electron from. Once the free-radical steals an electron from a healthy molecule, that target molecule now becomes a new free-radical (it has one less electron now, making it unstable). This newly created free-radical now repeats the same process and searches for another healthy molecule to steal an electron from. This process goes on and on and sets off a chain reaction which causes cell and tissue damage, the aforementioned diseases, and early aging.

Antioxidants are like the anti-terrorist forces of our body. Their job is to repair oxidative damage, seek out any nasty free-radicals floating throughout the body, and prevent them from harming healthy cells. Antioxidants have an unusual characteristic which allows them to remain stable when they have fewer than 8 electrons in their outer shell. When an antioxidant finds a free-radical it donates an electron, which neutralizes the free-radical by making it stable. Because of an antioxidant’s unusual properties it does not become a free-radical itself when it donates an electron.

How Do I Get More Antioxidants?

Although the body produces antioxidants naturally as enzymes, it doesn’t produce nearly enough on its own to fully protect the body against free-radicals. If naturally produced free-radicals weren’t bad enough, even more are created via pollution, cigarette smoke, and other environmental factors. Because of this it’s critical to provide the body with a constant supply of antioxidants through foods and drinks rich in antioxidant content. You’ll stay younger, healthier, and be less prone to disease. Here are a few different types of antioxidant vitamins, enzymes, and chemicals.