Everywhere I look, antioxidant this, antioxidant that. I’ve even seen them in shampoo. Don’t antioxidants come from foods? Why are they in a hygenic product? I guess they’ve had “papaya” shampoo for a while now, so what gives?
I think to really understand why we’re hearing so much about antioxidants, we need to take a look at the future of America’s health. Why America? Because American’s consume pretty much everything under the sun. I should know I live there. And now their health is affected by it.
It is also apparant that the Baby Boomer Generation is now aging very quickly. They are looking for a way to regain their youth. They want to get that energy back that they used to have. Many are having health issues arise and they’re looking for solutions.
The Bad and The Worse
America is sick! As a whole our health should be some of the best in the world. Yet there are some startling statistics. According to the American Cancer Society there will be 1,479,350 new cancer cases in 2009 alone.
In 2008 it was estimated by the Center for Disease Control that 24 million have diabetes and an estimated 57 million have pre-diabetes. Diabetes is being found more and more with young children. Isn’t that supposed to be something that only adults have problems with?
Obesity is also an issue in America. With the exception of one state, they have 20% to 30% obesity rates. In some cases that number is above 30%. So that means, 3 out of 10 people have to lose weight or they risk having more health problems.
According to the American Diabetes Association, “Presently, up to 15–20% of America’s teens 12–18 years of age are overweight. This comes to more than 5 million children.” Wow. that number is staggaring!!
When it comes to health ailments, I think all of us can know of people that have allergies, high blood pressure, arthiritis, low energy levels, restlessness, inflamation related issues, high cholesterol, diabetes and cancer. There is no such thing as discrimination when it comes to health ailments.
The Cause of Health Related Ailments are Free Radicals
Free radicals are the new enemy in the fight for humanity! Free radicals can come from a variety of places, such as the sun, stress, foods, alcohol, smoking, drugs and pollution just to name a few. They cannot be avoided. Period.
Free radicals are the cause of major disease and health issues. The reason that they cause problems in our bodies is because they attack healthy cells.
Here’s a pretty grisly example. Imagine that you are a healthy cell and someone (a free radical) comes by and rips your arm off. You’ll still live, but you just don’t function properly. This process occurs in our bodies 300 million cells a second. You wonder why cancer can spread so quickly? We replace anywhere from 10-50 trillion cells a day!! (Yes Trillion)
Scientifically speaking, free radicals are necessary for chemical reactions. We do need free radicals in nature, however when free radicals are created due to unnatural causes within the human body, this becomes an issue. A big issue.
To cut to the chase here, free radicals are the causes of disease and other health ailments because oxidation of an atom or molecule occurred because of some ‘environmental’ factor. Those factors were listed above as smoking, drinking alcohol, etc.
What this means to you is that free radicals are a part of your life because of your physical environment, your diet and your lifestyle. Free radicals are destroying your body at the molecular level and you are developing risks for developing diseases or even cancer.
Something that we can do to combat free radicals, is to take care of ourselves!! We need to have a proper diet and exercise regularly. More importantly we need a variety of antioxidants in our diet.
Go back to our example about our cells getting their “arms” ripped off. Well, the ripping off of arms is the oxidation of the cell (molecules). “Anti”oxidants, prevent the oxidation of our cells. So instead of allowing the free radicals to rip off our arms, anti-oxidants give them extra arms. Its like they’re an octopus that lends a helping hand.
The reason why antioxidants can give up an ‘arm’ is because they have plenty to spare. Obviously, I’m not a chemist so I can’t get into the jargon here, but they still exist in a stable form after they’ve combated the free radical.
Free radicals are harmful to the body, but if you can eliminate them from your body you can live a much longer life.
How to Eliminate Free Radicals from the Body
- Proper Diet – Eat 9-13 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. Make sure they are high in antioxidants. Apples, blueberrys, strawberries, pomagrantes, acai berries, tart cherries. Rule of thumb here is to eat all of the colors of the rainbow. EVERYDAY.
- Exercise – This is critical because you need to strengthen your body’s ability to function properly.
- Lifestyle Change - You need to be careful with what you do in life. If you’re stressed out a lot, you need to find a way to unwind. If you are out in the sun, you better start wearing some sun screen. Or if you like to party, you need to cut back on the smoking and drinking. The main thing you want to remember, is that you just need to be healthy.
This isn’t rocket science by any means. We all need to be informed. Sometimes all that it takes is for us to look around and take note of what’s happening. We’re not perfect, but we can try to be healthier. Park a little bit farther. Take the stairs. Skip that morning sugary rush. Not eat fried stuff, even though its our favorite thing in the world.
The deal with antioxidants are that they are super good for you and if you take them, you need to take them in their most natural form possible. Purees, extracts, or just right off the tree or vine. This is critical here because you are missing out on all of the nutrition if you eat things that are processed.
Be mindful of how antioxidants are processed. 2% juice, not so good. Juice that comes from a juicer that you made yourself. Much better decision. You’ll be getting the peel, seeds and the whole fruit and all its glory.
Say no to pills. They just sit in your colon. Try taking one of your pills and place it in vinegar and see how much dissolves after 30 mins. If its not broken apart, then you’re just poopin your money down the toilet.
9-13 servings of fruits and vegetables. Check. Work out everyday. Check. Lifestyle change. Check. Free radicals banished from my body. Check. Living till I’m 125. Check.
