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Antioxidants and Antioxidant Supplements
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You should start taking an antioxidant supplement, as antioxidants will slow down the aging process and help fight against disease.


An antioxidant prevents or slows down oxidation.  Antioxidants are a positive involvement to our health and physical well being. Antioxidants are substances that may protect your cells against the effect of free radicals.  Free radicals are molecules produced when your body breaks down the food that we eat.  Our cells naturally produce free radicals when our cells use oxygen.  There are many health problems that can result from these free radicals including heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer.  Eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day reduce the risk of having stroke by 25 percent.  Antioxidants also help to improve our immune system and fight off infections.

The way antioxidants work can mainly be classified into two different ways.

Chain-breaking- When a free radical releases an electron, a second one is formed.  This molecule then does the same thing to a third molecule, continuing to make more free radicals.  This course continues until termination occurs, which could be either the radical is stabilized by a chain-breaking antioxidant or it just simply decays into a risk-free, yet useless, product.

Preventive- Antioxidant enzymes prevent oxidation by reducing the rate of the chain initiation so that it does not even become a factor.  These enzymes hunt for those free radicals to eliminate them before the chain reaction can ever begin. 

Some free radicals arise normally during metabolism.  Sometimes the body’s immune system’s cells create them to neutralize viruses and bacteria.  The body can normally take on free radicals but if antioxidants are not present, then the free radicals can cause a lot of damage.  The damage from free radicals accumulates when they age. 

Free radicals are unstable and react quickly with other compounds trying to capture that much needed electron to gain stability.  Free radicals attack a stable molecule, grabbing its electron.  When that molecule loses its electron, it then becomes a free radical, beginning a chain reaction.  Once this course of action has begun it can result in the interruption of a living cell.  An example of this is when an apple turns brown, or iron begins to rust.

The following are types of antioxidants:

Vitamin E, the most abundant fat-soluble antioxidant in the body, is one of the most efficient chain breaking antioxidants available.  Vitamin E is the primary defender against oxidation and lipid per oxidation. 

Vitamin C, the most abundant water-soluble antioxidant in the body, acts primarily in fluid of the cells.  Vitamin C defends formation from cigarette smoke and pollution.  It also helps Vitamin E return to its active form.

Bero-carotene, a water-soluble vitamin, is the best quencher of single oxygen cells.  It is also good at hunting those free radicals in low oxygen concentration.

Selenium is a trace element.  It is a mineral that we only consume small amounts of, but we could not survive without it.  It forms the active site of several antioxidants.  Similar to this trace element are also manganese and zinc, which form an essential part of enzymes.

These are a few of the antioxidant supplements that can help you combat the free radicals in your system.