How Do Antioxidants Work - How Antioxidants Rescue Your Body

Antioxidants protect your cells. How do antioxidants work in your body?

One of the most frequent types of damage done to your body is caused by molecules known as free radicals. What are free radicals? Let’s look at the current typical daily lifestyle. You are constantly exposed to the outside world environmentally, physically and mentally. Environmental wise - sun rays (ultra violet rays), air pollution, water pollution, preservative food or poor nutrition diet choice and medications; Physical wise – excessive exercise; Mental wise – stress due to work, relationship and financial problems. All the above factors cause free radicals and your body is continuously being bombarded by these free radicals. When you perform any activities, your body is burning and producing toxins by reacting with oxygen (which is oxidation: just like the apple cut in half and turns brown).

How do antioxidants work to protect your cell? The above picture illustrates how a single human cell is being damaged by free radicals, and how a perfect cell should look like when it is being protected by antioxidants. Let's look at how the free radicals damage your cells. Here is an analogy: imagine yourself in front of a burning charcoal. What happen to the burning charcoal? The charcoal produces ashes and occasionally cinders. Let’s say the cinders and ashes land on the wooden floor, the sparkling cinders burn a hole on the floor, ashes covered the floor. May be a one cinder or one time burn of ashes does not pose so much of the problem to the floor but if the situation continues day after day, month after month, year after year, without doing any cleaning and removing of the ashes on the floor, the floor will be spoiled and eventually have to change a new one.

Your body is much the same thing like the burning charcoal, just that we never see the ashes or cinders, but they are there! The ashes or cinders are called the free radicals, the more you stress, the more you exposed to UV sun rays, the more free radicals your body produce. The floor represents your body. The part of body receives the most free radicals is the first one to break down and lead to degenerative diseases. If it is your brain, you could possibly develop Alzheimer’s dementia or Parkinson disease. Unfortunately, your body or organ does not have spare part, unlike the floor which is replaceable.

How Do Antioxidants Work? - The Role of Antioxidants

The mission of antioxidants is to find out these free radicals inside your body and make it impossible to attach to your body so that your cells are being protected from the damage of these free radicals. If you are lack of antioxidants and unable to neutralise these free radicals they can escape into surrounding tissues and furhter damage your cells. To prevent this damage, balance is the key.

The number of free radicals that you produce everyday is not the same. The pollution in the air, the foods you eat and the activity you perform determine the number of free radicals. Definitely, you must have enough antioxidants to neutralise these free radicals. Although your body can produce antioxidants, however, when the number of free radicals is too high, you will need to obtain extra antioxidants from your normal diet or supplements. What are the foods that contain good source of antioxidants? What kind of benefits can antioxidants offer to you? Visit the following link for tips to achieve optimum antioxidants levels and stay healthy.