How You Can Break Free From Free Radicals

Healthy aging depends on protection against oxidative damage.

When we use the term “free radicals” we’re not discussing the kind that listen to hardcore punk and paint graffiti on public property, but the kind that wreak havoc of all sorts on your body. As we get older, ultimately what slowly ruins our health, in fact, is the damage from free radicals, or oxidation.

What exactly are free radicals? They are atoms or molecules with unpaired electrons making them highly reactive. The reactivity of different compounds can vary, but they always lead to damage of all of what’s around you, including you.

Oxidative damage in our bodies is brought on by free radicals mainly by way of reactive oxygen (superoxide) released from the mitochondria and heightened by exposure to ”reactive oxygen species” from environmental toxins such as smog, chemicals, drugs and radiation.

Free radicals also breed free radicals causing chain reactions that can lead to more destruction in your body’s cells and tissues. A variety of free radicals attack various sites in the cells such as cell membranes, organelles and DNA.

For those  interested in living long, healthy lives, combatting free radicals is critical. It should be one of the greatest health goals because cumulative damage from free radicals, and resulting inflammation, have been implicated as factors in most age-related health problems.

Free-radical Fighting Strategies

Any nutritional program with efforts to protect health should entail active protection against free radicals. There are a variety of ways to accomplish the task, notably receiving plenty of antioxidants from the diet in forms of fruits, vegetables and high-antioxidant drinks and supplements.

Antioxidants in the diet are vital for terminating the oxidative chain reactions. These accomplish their task by donating electrons to free radicals, thus neutralizing them.

No one antioxidant can solely neutralize all kinds of free radicals. The antioxidants often act together in synergy such as vitamin C (ascorbic acid) with glutathione or vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) with vitamin A (beta-carotene) and Coenzyme Q10. They work in multiple sites and in different ways including regeneration to double efforts.

Along with the use of certain botanicals such as ashwaghanda or milk thistle and certain minerals such as selenium, the body is supported further by promoting activity of antioxidant enzymes or helping to spare antioxidants.

For most protection against free radical damage, it also becomes necessary to reduce exposure to pollutants as much as possible by breathing clean air, eating clean food and drinking clean water. In addition, oxidation is reduced by including appropriate nutrients in the diet that helps to promote detoxification.

Studies have also found that reduction of total calories in the diet or regular intermittent fasting (without malnutrition) helps reduce susceptibility to free radicals. Investigation into the effects of the lower caloric intake  on oxidative damage has found that it may result in less overall generation of free radicals from mitochondria and reduces damage to cell proteins, cell lipids and DNA.

What’s best is to use a long-term program, or total health and wellness system, that takes many of these strategies against free radicals into consideration such as reduced calories, high antioxidant intake, and nutritional cleansing.

Tags: antioxidants, Cell Membranes, Cells And Tissues, Cumulative Damage, Electrons, Environmental Toxins, Free Radicals, Fruits Vegetables, Greatest Health, Hardcore Punk, Health Goals, Health Problems, Healthy Aging, Mitochondria, Organelles, Oxidation, Paint Graffiti, Reactive Oxygen Species, Reactivity, Related Health

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 7:35 am and is filed under Isagenix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.