Antioxidants in your Food

Antioxidants are vitamins, minerals and other substances that destroy free radicals. Here's how they work. Free radicals, also called oxidants, are unhealthy molecules because they are missing electrons. They circulate in your body stealing electrons from your healthy molecules, making them unhealthy. Then these unhealthy ones in turn steal electrons and so on, creating a chain reaction. Soon, enough damage has occurred to your body's cells that serious degenerative diseases take hold, including cancer and heart disease.

An antioxidant is a molecule that can give up an electron without having to steal one to re-balance itself. So they disable free radicals and stop the damaging chain reaction. Vitamins A, C and E are powerful well-known antioxidants. Lesser known, but just as effective ones are cyanidins from grapeseed, glutathione and lipoic acid.

In our diet, antioxidants are most highly concentrated in vegetables and fruits. The dark green and leafy vegetables such as kale, cabbage, collard greens, dandelion, broccoli, spinach and Swiss chard are especially high in antioxidants. Our mothers are right - eating vegetables is good for us! Now you know why health practitioners advise us to eat five to ten servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

The benefits of antioxidants can be greatly enhanced with supplements manufactured under strictly controlled processes. For more information or an in-depth consultation, give my office a call. New patients welcome!

Copyright: Bruce Lofting N.D.