Denton County Living Well Magazine Summer 2015 | Page 36
The Power of Antioxidants
Free radicals
Our bodies are machines that work all the time converting food into energy. From these natural processes and the
chemical reactions involved, free radicals are generated.
But free radicals are not just generated in the way mentioned. According to Harvard University, they can also be
generated in the food a person eats, the air they breathe,
and by the sunlight’s action on the skin and eyes. In summary, they are just cells that are damaged during all these
natural and other processes and then are called free radicals. Once they become damaged, they hunt for healthy
cells and try to injure them by attacking their DNA. After this kind of attack––called free radical damage––the
injured cell can cause a basis for disease. Not just one cell
is damaged, many are! It’s a chain reaction. A common
example is cigarette smoking, which produces lots of free
radicals.
Thankfully, the body has a free radical defense system. It
involves the help of antioxidants. These are substances that
act as defenders with certain chemical behaviors and properties (Harvard, 2015). Up to a certain point they can deal
with huge radical attacks but sometimes the body cannot
stop and that is when we can develop diseases. Since we
can absorb (to a certain point) these defenders from food,
then it is a good idea to add them to o \