How Antioxidants Protect Our Cells
These days the catch word in the health and wellness industry is the often-heard antioxidant term. It probably sounds like “antioxidants for your health, for longevity and anti aging, for living healthy lives”. But do you know what these antioxidants are? How they work? Logical conjecture would most likely lead you to conclude that antioxidants combat “oxidants” in the body. But how do they work? What is the antioxidant oxidant battle really about? Let’s delve deeper into cell oxidation and free radicals.
It’s interesting to note that the entire issue of cell “health” in the body really boils down to bioelectric imbalances. And this imbalanced cell degradation usually happens at the time of energy production by the cells. Atoms or molecules in our bodies that somehow lose an electron become unstable, making them a free radical, or an “oxidant”. They will then try to take another electron from its immediate surrounding in an attempt to stabilize again. In doing so it has made the nearby molecule also unstable, or a free radical. It too will search to replace its missing electron by doing the same thing. The free radical action becomes a chain reaction. This reaction leaves cellular damage in its wake, causing the aging of a cell and in extreme cases, a cancerous cell.
Free radicals tend to be derived from the oxygen molecule because it has a higher tendency to lose an electron. It is a paradoxical molecule because we need it to survive and metabolize food into energy. But when it becomes a “reactive oxygen species” it creates cellular damage in its wake.
About 5% of the energy produced by the mitochondria in our cells is turned into free radical oxygen molecules. The mitochondria are our bodies’ energy factories. They take the nutrients from food and create water and energy in our bodies. Unfortunately, they are also a source of free radical creation. The other source or cause of free radicals in the body is when there is any kind of trauma happening upon the body such as an infection.
It’s amazing how such an integral molecule for our survival, can also be a harbinger of cell destruction. But nature has substances that counteract the damaging effect of free radicals. These are the antioxidants. These compounds can come from our diet or can be ready made by our own bodies. They can be vitamins, enzymes or amino acids.
Free radical damage to the cell is very complex. Scientists at first believed that free radicals damaged the cells by attacking the nucleus. It was discovered later that the damaged began initially at the lipid filled cell wall. The free radical destabilizes the oxygen in the cell wall creating oxidized fat. This fat then proceeds to attach the interior of the cell and the DNA through proinflammatory chemicals that keep on being propagated through the chain reaction of free radicals. Free radicals cause cell inflammation that in turn causes aging of the cell. Antioxidants can stop free radicals before they even reach the cell membrane, minimizing cell inflammation.
Enter the Anti Oxidants
Most of the antioxidants needed to stop free radical damage can be found in specific nutritional foods. But the human body also makes its own defense against free radicals.
The main antioxidant created by the human cells is called Glutathione. It is released by the cells when there’s a free radical attack. It is a tripeptide consisting of 3 different amino acids. These are glutamic acid, cysteine and glycine. It is considered to be the “Master Antioxidant”. It detoxifies at the cellular level, and it also boosts the immune system.
When cells undergo too much inflammation and oxidation, the body’s levels of Glutathione are used and then depleted to de-oxify the free radicals that caused the cell inflammation. Glutathione is made in the body by the cells. There are natural substances in the form of supplements that you can take to increase Glutathione production. There are also a few pharmaceuticals that can also help create it. This antioxidant is the most important one, so it is good to learn how “keep production up”.
Increasing Glutahione production the natural way really simply involves eating the right vegetables. These vegetables are high in Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) which promote the synthesis of Glutathione in the cells. The vegetables that contain ALA are tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, Brussels sprouts, rice bran, peas, cauliflower, kale, bok choi, cress, mustard, horse radish, avocados, red beets, rosemary, grape seed extract, bilberry extract, and pine bark (which has Pycnogenols), and turmeric.
Supplements to also improve the production of Glutathione are B vitamins, and Dimethylglycine or DMG for short.
Other Antioxidants
There are many different substances in food that offer antioxidant protection. Some of these by name are cartenoids, xanthophylls, flavonoids, flavon-3-ols, catechins, resveratrol, indoles, glucosinolates, omega 3 fatty acids. Even some vitamins and chemicals are considered antioxidants such as vitamin E, sulfur, and vitamins A, C, B and D. The list goes on and it would be quite a long article to go into all of them.
In conclusion, all anti oxidants have three things in common. One-They are more attractive to free radicals than the surrounding tissue so that the free radical can be contained and diffused before they damage the cell. Two- They have to be non toxic to the body. Three- They have to be able to be fat soluble in order to be able to penetrate the cell plasma membrane, and be able to stop any damage of it. The free radical damage begins at the cell plasma membrane and it triggers damage from there to the entire cell.