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Antioxidants The Road to Health

© Stephanie Hembree

Finally the scientific community has gotten away from what you should not eat. Do not eat fat, sugar, red meat all are bad for you, leaves a person very confused what should I eat? The latest medical research suggests that free radicals and antioxidants play a role in most diseases as well as in aging. A brief letter that explains what free radicals and antioxidants are comes from the University of Texas Lifetime Health entitled, The molecular battlefield in your body: how antioxidants neutralize free radicals and prevent disease. It can be found at http://www.thriveonline.com/health/Libra... The classic vitamin antioxidants are C, E and beta-carotene. Certain minerals such as zinc and selenium are also involved in antioxidant protection. However, research shows that tea, chocolate, soy products as well as fruits and vegetables have been shown to have compounds in them that provide antioxidant capabilities. Reports about drinking have made the headlines too.

Much has been published about the "French Paradox", that the French have diets high in cholesterol and fat but have a lower incidence of coronary artery disease than do many countries including the U.S. Doctor Stephen Sinatra, cardiologist and author of Optimum Health (Bantam Books) has written an article on red wine and your heart. He explains why drinking red wine might help and why you should be careful about consuming too much. http://www.healthwell.com/naturaldr/awor...

Studies at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston "suggest that consuming fruits and vegetables may help slow the aging process in both body and brain. Science has long held that damage by oxygen free radicals is behind many of the maladies that come with aging, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. There's firm evidence that a high intake of fruits and vegetables reduces risk of cancer and that a low intake raises risk".

The scientific research has helped sales of antioxidant vitamins but these researchers point out that many large scale testing of supplements have failed to prove taking supplements holds the same benefits as eating the whole food. It may be the combinations of nutrients in food that is beneficial. For example, foods contain more than 4,000 components. These constitute a major class of dietary antioxidants and appear to be responsible for a large part of the protective power of fruits and vegetables. To read more about this research from The Agricultural Research Service go to http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/fe...

Antioxidants are protective substance found naturally in fruits, vegetables and grains. So please do not run out and buy supplements just do as Mom said and eat your fruits, vegetables and whole grains. A good way to get your antioxidants is from the rainbow of colors available. Yellow foods contain lutein, which protects eyesight and anthoxanthins that increases detoxification and are protective against certain kinds of cancer. Red foods contain lycopene believed to lower the risk of stomach, bladder and colon cancer. Green foods get their color from chlorophyll that has the ability to block the action of certain cancer-causing substances. Orange foods contain beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant shown to prevent cancers of the stomach, breast, lung and cervix. Blue/purple foods have anthocyanin, beside protecting against cancer it also dilates blood vessels and reduces the risk of stroke and heart attack. This may be the same reason that red wine has been shown to reduce the risk of heart attack.