Best Super Antioxidants

You've likely read or heard alot about super antioxidants in conjunction with good health or avoiding diseases. Antioxidants are getting great press lately, and rightfully so. But what are they? What do they do once inside our bodies? And how do we get more of them?

What are antioxidants and which are the best?

Once an antioxidant finds its way into your body, mostly through the foods you eat, it slows down, or even prevents, the oxidation of other molecules. When molecules in the body oxidize, they can create free-radicals, or cellular bi-products. It is very normal to have these free-radicals in the body, but in excess, they can wreak havoc on our cellular structures.

What Are Free Radicals?

Free radicals create a destructive process in our cells, causing the molecules within the cells to become unstable. They may even be a big player in the formation of cancerous cells by a “chain-reaction” effect, causing other cells to become damaged. Because of the inherent instability of free-radicals, they try to attack other healthy cells to get stable themselves. This then causes the once-healthy cells to react in the same way, attacking others in an never-ending attempt for cellular stability.

Free-radicals are "bullies" which start pushing everyone around, and encourage "nice" cells to become bullies as well. Just like most conflicts, the results are “free radical waste products” made up of our broken, injured and deformed cells. If your cells are weak, it's natural your organs, tissues and skin of the body will likewise become weakened.

Oxidative damage plays a huge role in many of our modern-day diseases, such as muscle and tissue degeneration, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, as well as many other health problems. You are exposed to free radicals as a normal bi-product of regular bodily processes, like breaking down the food we eat, taking toxic medicines, as well as through exposure to pollutants.

In addition, over-exposure to the sun (sunburn) and smoking can also increase your body’s need to oxidize and create free-radicals. Antioxidants stop this cellular chain reaction of oxidation by neutralizing the free radicals.

The National Cancer Institute has stated that preliminary research in lab animals shows that “antioxidants help prevent the free radical damage that is associated with cancer.” Many experts feel that increased antioxidants in the body can also help slow the process of aging, and may even increase longevity.

How to more super antioxidants into your body?

A key "secret" to consuming more super antioxidants is simple: Eat more organic fresh fruits and vegetables, and drink natural raw fruit, vegetable, and greens drinks.

The easiest and most effective way to expose yourself to more antioxidants is through your diet. By incorporating at least five servings of fruit and vegetables a day into your diet, you may be helping your body reduce its chances of heart disease, neurological diseases, cancer and lowered immunity.

So enjoy eating a variety of these fruits and veggies daily! 

Examples of common antioxidants include glutathione, beta-carotene, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Selenium, alpha lipoic acid, melatonin and vitamin E.

A few important antioxidant enzymes the body naturally produces are superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase and glutathione peroxidase. However, in order for the body to produce these it requires zinc, manganese, copper and selenium.

In addition, for added assurance, take a wide-variety antioxidant vitamin supplement such as Nuriche Antiox, which is the best super antioxidant I've found. 

List of Foods High In Antioxidants

The following is a short-list for Antioxidant-rich Foods. Try to incorporate as many as possible into your daily diet. And remember, organic, raw, fresh and local is always best:

Antioxidants - a more technical description

Antioxidants are molecules that relieve oxidative stress by preventing formation and by inhibiting oxidation of free radicals (Halliwell, 1995). They are able to donate one of their electrons or hydrogen to free radicals, stopping their chain reaction (Kaur & Kapoor, 2001). Found in our diet (e.g. vitamins) or formed inside our body e.g. enzymes, antioxidants can protect us from the damaging effects of free radicals (Afzal & Armstrong, 2002).

The best way to combat free radicals is to have a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, red wine, and green tea (Percival, 1998; Kaur & Kapoor, 2001). These functional foods are rich in phytochemicals with antioxidant properties. Health supplements enriched with antioxidants are also now widely available.

References

Afzal, M., Armstrong, D. (2002). “Fractionation of herbal medicine for identifying antioxidant activity”. In: Armstrong, D. (Ed.) Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 186: Oxidative Stress Biomarkers and Antioxidant Protocols, Humana Press Inc.

Halliwell, B., Aeschbach, R., Loliger, J., Aruoma, O.I. (1995). ”The characterization of antioxidant”. Food and Chemical Toxicology 33(7): 601–617.

Kaur, C., Kapoor, H. (2001). “Review: antioxidants in fruits and vegetables – the millennium’s health”. International Journal of Food Science and Technology 36: 703–725.

Percival, M. (1998). “Antioxidants”. Clinical Nutrition Insights 1/96 Rev. 10/98. http://acudoc.com/Antioxidants.PDF