Antioxidant Supplements – Are the Right For You?

Many people who care about health spend a lot of time learning about antioxidants. They will also often buy antioxidant supplements too and they do it for one simple reason. They want the benefits that antioxidants can provide for their health. But the little wrinkle in that plan is that taking antioxidant supplements might not do everything they want.

What Antioxidants Do For Your Health

To understand what antioxidants do and why theyre important, you need to understand free radicals, which are caused by rogue electrons. Lets go to the big picture first and then focus in on free radicals.

Your body is a complicated system. It is a collection of organs, like your brain and your liver and even your skin, that each performs a certain job. They all need to do their job for you to be truly healthy. Your organs are made of living tissue, composed of trillions of cells made up of molecules and their component atoms, each with their proper count of electrons. The sharing of electrons is what binds atoms into molecules, but they can become damaged and lose and electron. This creates a free radical because the atom missing an electron will “steal” it from the closest source, which creates in its turn another unstable atom.

This sets off a chain reaction that damages the structure of many molecules and will eventually damage the cell. When enough cells are damaged the tissue of the organ will begin to deteriorate.

Antioxidants are molecules containing atoms that can donate an electron to a free radical and will either remain stable without it or will become too weak to steal an electron from another atom. Regardless why, the chain reaction is stopped and the antioxidant has protected the cell. Bruce Ames, a well known scientist studying antioxidants estimated that a cell will be hit up to 10,000 times daily by a free radical looking to steal an electron. And to put that into perspective consider the trillions of cells in our bodies.

This attack by free radicals contributes to (and some will say primarily causes) many of the acute and chronic diseases that we associate with aging. Alzheimers disease, acute and chronic inflammation, coronary disease, cancer, type II diabetes, Parkinsons disease, rheumatoid arthritis and some types of dementia have all been traced back to free radical damage. And thats not the full list.

I believe that it’s really important to reduce your own production of free radicals and up your level of antioxidants and making a decision to buy antioxidants is one thing you can do. But it isn’t the whole picture. You should also:

1- Stop causing the damage. Free radicals are created through many processes. Many of which we can control. Air pollution, primary and second hand tobacco smoke, substance abuse, Junk Food, unnecessary chemicals and excessive exercise (yes even good things than go bad) all create free radicals and all are within our ability to control.

2- Eat Better. Naturally, if you don’t have a healthy diet – you won’t be healthy. Fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and legumes. Honestly, the list of antioxidant rich foods is very long and you’re bound to find something you’ll love.

3- Research the best quality antioxidant supplements you can find and add them to your health plan. Vitamins C and E are almost universally available with Cordyceps and Resveratrol almost as easy to find.

4. Incorporate Glutathione precursors into your plan. There isn’t an effective oral Glutathione supplement right now, but you can take a Glutathione precursor to support you own ability to manufacture glutathione. Simply Google “Glutathione precursor” to see what’s available. Other natural supplements like Milk Thistle and Selenium are beneficial.

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