anti-aging antioxidants
If You Decide Not To Read This Whole Article .. Please Be Sure To Read The Information At The Bottom Of This Page
In the anti-aging wars, the enemy combatant is the free radical. In the body, a free radical is an oxygen molecule that is missing an electron and steals one from a nearby cell. Although free radicals serve a beneficial purpose – such as killing bacteria – their sneaky way of robbing electrons can result in cell damage, which manifests as the signs of aging.
While your body has mechanisms to reduce and repair damage by free radicals, you can help it along by avoiding the environmental causes or free radical production and by taking measures to increase your intake of antioxidants, which are the best defense against free radicals. Both of these anti-aging strategies will keep you looking younger for longer.
Environmental Hazards
Environmental elements, such as UV radiation, alcohol, and food preparation, create free radicals that can outmatch your body’s ability to neutralize them.
UV Radiation: Exposure to the ultraviolet (UV) radiation in sunlight is the biggest culprit in the premature aging of the skin; everything from wrinkling to dryness to easy bruising can be largely attributed to exposure to UVA and UVB radiation. Free radicals break down the skin’s collagen, which is key to keeping skin soft and supple. Avoid sun exposure between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., particularly during the summer, when UV rays are strongest. If you must be outdoors, apply a UV-protective sunblock to any exposed areas of skin.
Alcohol: Although red wine has been touted as a source of antioxidants, it’s unclear whether its benefits outweigh the free radical byproducts of two toxic compounds that alcohol produces. If you’re going to drink alcohol, do so in moderation, and counteract its effects by eating foods rich in antioxidants.
Food Preparation: When certain foods are cooked at high temperatures, the fat they contain breaks down and produces free radicals. The process of commercially roasting nuts, for example, can break down heat-sensitive oils and result in free radical production. Most common, though, are the free radicals produced by grilling meat. But before you pack away your grill, you should know that you can minimize free radical production by slow cooking the meat, or, according to a recent study, sprinkle rosemary on meat before grilling it. The antioxidant properties of rosemary help to counteract the free radicals that form during the high-temperature cooking process.
Antioxidant Action
By upping your intake of antioxidants, you can arm your body with more weaponry to combat free radicals. Naturally occurring in many foods, or taken as supplements, powerful antioxidants include:
Vitamin C: Because vitamin C is water-soluble, any excess gets flushed out of your body. So it’s doubly important to make sure you get enough vitamin C each day. This vitamin is found in citrus fruits, broccoli, green leafy vegetables, many berries, raw cabbage, and asparagus.
Vitamin E: Vitamin E is fat-soluble, so it can be stored in your body’s fat reserves. It has powerful anti-aging properties, and can be taken by supplement, or by eating fortified breakfast cereals, nuts, seeds, wheat germ, whole grains, leafy green vegetables, vegetable oil, and fish oil.
Beta-carotene: Just as beta-carotene protects fruits and vegetables from sun damage, it can do the same for you. Source of beta-carotene include carrots, broccoli, squash, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, peaches, and apricots.
Selenium: Selenium is a mineral that, taken in large doses, can be toxic. It does have strong antioxidant properties, though, and can be found in fish, red meat, grains, eggs, chicken, and garlic.
Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies on the web. Visit this Health and Beauty Website and Majon’s Health and Beauty directory.
Antioxidants – all hype?
I am getting caught up in the whole ORAC measurements and antioxidant’s anti-aging power. I am drinking more green tea and eating more cranberries and goji berries, and daily vitamin E supplements. I feel good about my better dieting but can’t help but think if antioxidants are all hype. What makes one antioxidant different from others? For instance, if vitamin C is an antioxidant, why can’t I just drink more Hi-C (ignoring the high sugar content) to get my antioxidants? Should I just ignore claims from foods that say antioxidants are super cool and just focus more on other aspects of the food???
Science has shown that there are food molecules that protect us from oxidative stress on the cellular and molecular level. For example, The National Cancer Institute is studying phytochemicals, Phyto is the Greek word for plant or light.
Its important to know that phytochemicals are the pigment that form on fruits and vegetables to protect the seeds from the Ultra Violet damaging rays of our Sun.
We eat those phytochemicals and they do what anitoxidant vitamins and minerals cannot do, they move through the cell wall and enter the cell. They then snuff out free radicals by allowing the atom to borrow an ion so that the cell will not rust or prematurely age, thereby keeping cancerous cells from forming or metastasizing (a cell finding a new home to grow).
Rust is a great example of free radical damage. That is what aging is, its your cells rusting. Antioxidants help reduce that rust or premature aging.
Anyway, the National Cancer Institute launched a multi million dollar study to understand these new found food components to understand why they work and how they work.
You can drink all the commercially available green tea you want to, but it has oxidized by the time you, the consumer thinks you are getting any nutritional value. But, you are not.
Green tea that is carefully extracted and kept from oxidizing is expensive and is the kind that works.
For example, many products tested through ORAC are pro oxidative. Meaning, they are harmful. So, there is an exact science to discovering how high quality food molecules actually work within the human cell.
See resource link on ORAC (o).
By the way, High C is absolute junk. Its corn syrup and synthetic vitamin C added with a health claim. Eat a naval orange and you will get natural vitamin C that is in its actual food matrix that your body will utilize and nourish your cells.
If you looked into the orange with a high powered microscope, the center of a food matrix vitamin c is copper and the outer edges are the bioflavinoids that bind vitamin C as one component. All work in concert and all are needed for the cell to function properly… High C cannot provide what a naval orange can.
Behind the glossy images in magazines, and on television, there lies dangerous anti-aging secrets.
Most skin care products, even the “natural” ones, contain many harsh chemicals used in industrial processes.
These chemicals are known to cause a wide range of adverse health effects, ranging from skin irritation to cancer.
But the skin care companies don’t want you to know this.
If you knew the truth, you’d have second thoughts about buying many of the most popular skin care products on the market……even the expensive brands.
You can stop aging by educating yourself on effective anti-aging skin care and use anti-aging products that will work for you and your skin.
Read What the Big Skin Care Manufacturers Don’t Want You to Know . .
