The Health Battlefield For A Green Healthy Lifestyle: Antioxidents and Free Radicals
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Our Body Is A Daily Battlefield For Our Health: Free Radicals & Antioxidents Are The Fighters!!! Let's Keep Our Bodies Strong & Our Environment Green
http://ezinearticles.com/?Winning-the-War-Against-Free-Radicals---More-About-Antioxidants&id=1954306/
So our body is a daily war zone, with the fighting going on between free radicals and antioxidants. Unfortunately, free radicals ultimately win the battle, and we experience illness and finally, death. What is this unending war in our body that we are unaware of as we conduct our daily affairs. This discovery, which researchers and medical professionals are just beginning to publicize, and I found during my ongoing research in health and nutrition, will shock you. If we had only known about this years ago, and how important it is to get more antioxidants into our system, we would have lived healthier and longer lives.
Let me explain this raging battle between free radicals and antioxidants in layman terms. Medical researchers use their medical jargon, most of which is almost impossible to understand. So for us regular guys and gals, I will explain what is going on here, in an organized, easy to understand, "street smart" format.
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Fetching RSS feed... please stand bySo What Are Antioxidants And Free Radicals?
Who Is Going To Win The Battle Between These Combatants
My "street smart" format is divided into 3 sections:
- What are free radicals - the enemy!
- What are antioxidants - our heroes!!
- What is the battle, and how can we win it for better health and prolonged life?
Free radicals are not free. They are so expensive that even the superrich can not afford them. After all, health is our real wealth. Free radicals are unstable molecules, and they find, attack, damage, destroy and oxidize stable, healthy molecules and cells. Sounds like our bodies are at war.
The destruction is oxidation, and we know about oxidation. What happens to a bright, shiny nail when we leave it laying outside. It oxidizes, turning to rust, until it becomes a pile of rusty ashes. And so, as the free radicals win the battle, we oxidize slowly until we become a pile of ashes.
All substances, including our bodies, are composed of atoms, molecules and cells. There are 92 different kinds of atoms in nature, from hydrogen, the lightest, to uranium, the heaviest, and substances are made from a combination of different kinds of atoms linked together. Our bodies are made from just over 20 different atoms, but about 90% of our bodies are made from only four-carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. These combinations of atoms are called molecules. Molecules are what forms our cells, and their normal functioning determines our health and how quickly we age. They can not operate normally when the unstable free radicals are attacking them in increasing numbers.
Where do these free radicals come from? Under normal conditions they exist in our bodies, naturally. They enter our bodies also, as we interact with our environment. They are in the air we breath, sunlight, and the food we eat. So we can not avoid them. Unfortunately, the exploding new technologies in society, and the way we live today, have contributed to a dramatic increase in the supply of free radicals that enter our bodies. So to win the battle we must have more antioxidants.
Antioxidents - Our Heroes:
Our bodies have a number of naturally-produced antioxidants that inhibit the formation of free radical molecules or destroy them. Two of the most powerful are tocopheral - vitamin E (fat soluble) and vitamin C (water soluble). The fat soluble vitamin E is important because most significant free radical destruction in the body is damage to the fat molecules in the membranes of cells. Vitamin C, because it is water soluble, gets distributed to all parts of the body. The two vitamins are extremely efficient at destroying free radicals.
The body also has naturally-produced antioxidant enzymes, which are highly active protein substances. Thousands of different enzymes promote the daily operation of our bodies, and one of the most important is the antioxidant enzyme, super-oxide dismutase. It's only purpose is to change the dangerous superoxide free radical, and along with other enzymes break it down to water and oxygen, the good guys we need.
So we need a large supply of antioxidants and enzymes to win the battle with free radicals.
What is the battle, and how can we win it for better health and prolonged life?
Every cell in your body sustains about 10,000 free radical attacks each day, and these incursions are increasing as a result of environmental damage and the way we live today.
For example, the manufactured foods we eat at restaurants, and buy in grocery stores, especially deep-fat fried foods, supply an enhanced flow of free radicals. Smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages contribute to more free radicals. And, of course, we are all painfully aware of the extensive pollution of our air, waterways and oceans, which significantly increase the free radicals entering our bodies. These free radicals are continously attacking body proteins, carbohydrates, fats and DNA, resulting in serious damage, if not destroyed or neutralized.
As we age, the natural formation of antioxidants in our bodies begins to slow, and if our health is impaired by disease, then we must supplement the natural supply of antioxidants. After all, we are taking in large supplies of free radicals from external sources. So lets get more antioxidants into our systems with supplementation from external sources.
How do we get more antioxidants? Of course foods high in antioxidants are preferred. Natural foods are more desirable, because they are not contaminated by chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which while providing more antioxidants also provide more free radicals. Vitamin supplements are another important source of antioxidants.
For more information see my other Squidoo Lens sites:
http://www.squidoo.com/dquentinhealth/
http://www.squidoo.com/green-tea-for-your-health-/
http://www.squidoo.com/groups/healthybreakfasfoods/
http://www.squidoo.com/naturalhealthconcepts/
http://www.squidoo.com/whole-wheat-sourdough-bread/
http;//heathlyenergynow.blogspot.com/
A Great Product For Supplying More Antioxidants For Free Radical Control
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More About Antioxidents
An antioxidant is a molecule capable of slowing or preventing the oxidation of other molecules. Oxidation is a chemical reaction that transfers electrons from a substance to an oxidizing agent. Oxidation reactions can produce free radicals, which start chain reactions that damage cells. Antioxidants terminate these chain reactions by removing free radical intermediates, and inhibit other oxidation reactions by being oxidized themselves. As a result, antioxidants are often reducing agents such as thiols, ascorbic acid or polyphenols.
Although oxidation reactions are crucial for life, they can also be damaging; hence, plants and animals maintain complex systems of multiple types of antioxidants, such as glutathione, vitamin C, and vitamin E as well as enzymes such as catalase, superoxide dismutase and various peroxidases. Low levels of antioxidants, or inhibition of the antioxidant enzymes, cause oxidative stress and may damage or kill cells.
As oxidative stress might be an important part of many human diseases, the use of antioxidants in pharmacology is intensively studied, particularly as treatments for stroke and neurodegenerative diseases. However, it is unknown whether oxidative stress is the cause or the consequence of disease. Antioxidants are also widely used as ingredients in dietary supplements in the hope of maintaining health and preventing diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease. Although initial studies suggested that antioxidant supplements might promote health, later large clinical trials did not detect any benefit and suggested instead that excess supplementation may be harmful. In addition to these uses of natural antioxidants in medicine, these compounds have many industrial uses, such as preservatives in food and cosmetics and preventing the degradation of rubber and gasoline.
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It is absolutely necessary to understand the war raging in our bodies between antioxidents and free radicals. Our health depends on it.
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It's All About Living A Green Lifestyle. That Is How We Get The Antioxidants To Win The War.
Eating "Green", organic and natural, foods is how we win the war against free radicals.
My Bio
The Green Guy, aka D. Quentin Webb, Ph.D., earned three university degrees, not online, during eight years of university studies. This background provides the tools and mindset for the research and writing that he is currently undertaking.
During his 40 years in the employment stream, he spent considerable time studying and using, in a "street smart" mindset, the healthy living information that he found during his practical research. Diet, nutrition, natural foods, vitamins, minerals, herbs, alternative medicine were the areas of research and practical use.
The author is well over 65 years old, and is a testament to his healthy living efforts. He has a vast reserviour of energy, very alert, no aches or pains, is very active, never gets the flu or colds, and is slender and athletic. In short, he is quite healthy (wealthy).
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