Antioxidants Benefits
The antioxidants benefits include strengthening your immune system, slowing down the aging process and most importantly fighting off free radicals (FR for short). This is big because FR’s are damaging to the body… causing an increase in inflammation & can lead to many degenerative diseases (e.g. cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, etc).
Adequate amounts of antioxidants are needed to fight off these damaging things and to keep your immune system strong. Fortunately your bodies have its own defenses against FR’s… mostly using oxygen.
Disease cannot live in an oxygen-rich environment. However, our world has an oxygen shortage. As a result our bodies are working overtime in order to keep free radicals in check. And this is causing extra stress & strain on the body.
I related free radicals to cracks on a freeway. But how much damage can free radicals really do?
Picture any food that’s rotting and has mold on it…
The rotting taking place in these pictures is FR’S at work (“oxidation” is the technical term). Now picture this type of rotting taking place inside your body.
Imagine it affecting your brain, immune system, heart and other major organs. This type of excessive activity in your body is the start to a slippery slope of bad health and disease.
Doctor’s are recognizing that many acute and chronic illnesses are related to the excess of free radicals in our bodies. There is also a lot of research being done in discovering the antioxidants benefits.
Now for the 2nd experiment… cut open another apple but this time dip it in some lemon juice and watch what happens. The browning/rotting will either slow down significantly or stop altogether. The reason is because lemon juice has an important antioxidant, Vitamin C.
So how are Antioxidants and the Immune System related?
There are 2 prevailing theories on why we get sick: The Holistic Theory and the Disease Theory.
The older of the two, the Disease Theory, states that a particular bacteria or virus will get “inside” your body and can cause you to be sick.
The Holistic Theory states that your body is already full of foreign bodies and free radicals but is able to function normally because antioxidants will “disarm” the harmful stuff… thus keeping your body “in balance.”
And the reason we get sick is because the amount of free radicals is greater than the antioxidants fighting them, causing an “imbalance” in the body. This imbalance, if nothing is done about it, can go from you feeling a little under the weather to potentially causing cancer. I first read the Holistic Theory of disease in the book The Super Anti-Oxidants by Dr. James Balch.
The antioxidants benefits help to prevent free radicals from tipping the scales to the wrong side of things. Antioxidants neutralize free radicals so they go from very harmful to practically harmless (kind of like pulling the trigger of an unloaded rifle).
As a result, building a healthy immune system from the aid of antioxidants benefits will keep your body and immune system healthy and working well!
What’s The Best Solution?
The best solution to combating imbalance in your body is through proper exercise, nutrition and the right amount of antioxidants. Keep in mind that the benefits of antioxidants alone can’t make you invincible to everything but adding them definitely gives you a greater advantage.
The best thing to do to start is by either adding an antioxidant supplement (e.g. a multi-vitamin w/ Vitamin A, C, D, E & selenium) or by including antioxidant-rich foods to your diet today!
Now that we know the benefits of antioxidants you might want to know what source(s) you can find them. The Antioxidants Detective website has a list of best sources to getting antioxidants (most of them are fruits and vegetables).