FREE RADICALS

Free radicals are atoms or molecules missing an electron. They must find another electron to make itself complete. A once stable oxygen atom loses its electron to a free radical, and now is damaged and open to disease. Free radical damage has been associated with over 60 known diseases and disorders. Free radicals are the major cause in nearly every known disease, from heart disease, arthritis, cancer and cataracts, even the aging process itself. Each human cell undergoes 10,000 hits from free radials each day. Free radicals form in the body when it's exposed to pollution, chemicals, sunlight, ozone, cigarette smoke, food additives, and oxygen. How To Fight Free Radicals? Antioxidants counteract free radicals. Antioxidants are molecules with an extra electron that share with the free radical. By Antioxidants giving up the free electron, the body's cells don't lose one and are safe from potential disease.

Understanding Free Radicals and Antioxidants

What are free radicals? Why are they damaging to the human body? And how does vitamin E and the other antioxidant nutrients help protect the body against free radical damage? We?ll attempt to answer these questions and help you understand why eating 5-8 servings per day of anti-oxidant rich fruits and vegetables can benefit your health. But first, a little background?

Background: A Brief Look at Chemical Bonding

To understand the way that free radicals and antioxidants interact, you must first understand a bit about cells and molecules.  So here's a (very) brief refresher course in Physiology/Chemistry 101:  The human body is composed of many different types of cells. Cells are composed of many different types of molecules. Molecules consist of one or more atoms of one or more elements joined by chemical bonds.

As you probably remember from your old high school days, atoms consist of a nucleus, neutrons, protons and electrons. The number of protons (positively charged particles) in the atom?s nucleus determines the number of electrons (negatively charged particles) surrounding the atom. Electrons are involved in chemical reactions and are the substance that bonds atoms together to form molecules. Electrons surround, or "orbit" an atom in one or more shells. The innermost shell is full when it has two electrons. When the first shell is full, electrons begin to fill the second shell. When the second shell has eight electrons, it is full, and so on. 

The most important structural feature of an atom for determining its chemical behavior is the number of electrons in its outer shell. A substance that has a full outer shell tends not to enter in chemical reactions (an inert substance). Because atoms seek to reach a state of maximum stability, an atom will try to fill it?s outer shell by:

• Gaining or losing electrons to either fill or empty its outer shell
• Sharing its electrons by bonding together with other atoms in order to complete its outer shell

Atoms often complete their outer shells by sharing electrons with other atoms. By sharing electrons, the atoms are bound together and satisfy the conditions of maximum stability for the molecule.

How Free Radicals are Formed

Normally, bonds don?t split in a way that leaves a molecule with an odd, unpaired electron. But when weak bonds split, free radicals are formed. Free radicals are very unstable and react quickly with other compounds, trying to capture the needed electron to gain stability. Generally, free radicals attack the nearest stable molecule, "stealing" its electron. When the "attacked" molecule loses its electron, it becomes a free radical itself, beginning a chain reaction. Once the process is started, it can cascade, finally resulting in the disruption of a living cell.

Some free radicals arise normally during metabolism. Sometimes the body?s immune system?s cells purposefully create them to neutralize viruses and bacteria. However, environmental factors such as pollution, radiation, cigarette smoke and herbicides can also spawn free radicals.

Normally, the body can handle free radicals, but if antioxidants are unavailable, or if the free-radical production becomes excessive, damage can occur. Of particular importance is that free radical damage accumulates with age.

How Antioxidants May Prevent Against Free Radical Damage

The vitamins C and E, are thought to protect the body against the destructive effects of free radicals. Antioxidants neutralize free radicals by donating one of their own electrons, ending the electron-"stealing" reaction. The antioxidant nutrients themselves don?t become free radicals by donating an electron because they are stable in either form They act as scavengers, helping to prevent cell and tissue damage that could lead to cellular damage and disease.

Vitamin E ? The most abundant fat-soluble antioxidant in the body. One of the most efficient chain-breaking antioxidants available. Primary defender against oxidation. Primary defender against lipid peroxidation (creation of unstable molecules containing more oxygen than is usual).
Vitamin C ? The most abundant water-soluble antioxidant in the body. Acts primarily in cellular fluid. Of particular note in combating free-radical formation caused by pollution and cigarette smoke. Also helps return vitamin E to its active form.

The Antioxidants and Disease Prevention

• Heart Disease ? Vitamin E may protect against cardiovascular disease by defending against LDL oxidation and artery-clogging plaque formation.
• Cancer ? Many studies have correlated high vitamin C intakes with low rates of cancer, particularly cancers of the mouth, larynx and esophagus.

WHY ALMOST EVERYONE NEEDS NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS

Image by 46137 via Flickr

Among the reasons are:

Soil depletion reduces the nutrient content.  In many areas of the world the land has been overfarmed without putting back enough nutrients on the land, or the soil is just of low quality.

Hybrid crops provide lower-nutrient food. These are used everywhere today, even on organic farms.  They yield more food per acre, but the crops often have a much lower nutrient content than those grown 100 years ago.
         For example, ten times as much rice or wheat are grown on the same land as was grown there 100 years ago.  As a result, in part, today's wheat contains about 6% protein whereas 100 years ago it contained 12-14%.  Trace mineral levels are similarly much lower due to high-yield farming methods.

Modern fertilizers do not supply enough trace elements. One hundred years ago, manures were used extensively for fertilizer.  Today, superphosphate fertilizers have largely replaced manures.  These contain mainly nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus and are deficient in the trace elements contained in manures.
         Superphosphates often act more as growth stimulants.  This has contributed greatly to depletion of the soil and crop minerals.  This includes organically grown food, although it is much better.

Pesticides and herbicides damage soil microorganisms and reduce the nutrition of the crops.  Soil microorganisms are needed to make minerals and other nutrients available to plants.  The result of damage due to their use is often much lower nutrient content.  Also, our bodies require extra nutrients to process pesticide residues that remain inside the foods.

Many pesticides are deadly chemicals that severely tax the human system.  Some contain lead, arsenic and other toxic metals that slowly accumulate in the body unless and until one follows a health program designed to remove them.

Our laws currently allow sewage and even factory sludge to be sold as fertilizer that contains significant quantities of toxic metals.   These add greatly to our toxic metal burden and requires that we take in nutrients to help remove them from the body.

Long-distance transportation of many foods diminishes their nutrition.  As soon as a food is harvested, the levels of certain nutrients begin to diminish.  Today, many foods are grown thousands of miles from population centers.  They may spend a week on a truck or a train before they reach you.

Food processing often drastically reduces nutrient content.  For example, the refining of wheat to make white flour removes 80% of its magnesium, 70-80% of its zinc, 87% of its chromium, 88% of its manganese and 50% of its cobalt.

Similarly, refining sugar cane to make white sugar removes 99% of its magnesium and 93% of its chromium.  Polishing rice removes 75% of its zinc and chromium.  One answer to this is that some frozen foods are nutritionally better if they are flash frozen at the farm.  Even canned sardines are not bad if they are sped to you by aircraft or by boats soon after processing.  However, the best food is freshly harvested or freshly killed and eaten quickly.

Food additives can further deplete nutrients.  Thousands of artificial flavors, colors, dough conditioners, stabilizers and preservatives are added to most people’s foods.  While some are harmless and may even increase the quality of the food by preserving it, many are toxic and can deplete the body of nutrients.  For example, EDTAadded to some frozen vegetables to preserve the color of the vegetable does so by removing vital minerals from the vegetable so it does not “tarnish”.

Weak digestion and poor eating habits impair the absorption of nutrients. Most people’s digestion is very weak today.  As a result, they do not absorb nutrients well.  This further impairs nutrient absorption and increases nutritional needs.  This is why in nutritional balancing programs, everyone is given a digestive aid and liver detoxification supplement.

Stressful lifestyles deplete many nutrients including calcium, magnesium and zinc. Zinc begins to be eliminated from the body within minutes of a stress.  This is why many people have white spots on their fingernails, for example.

Stress causes excessive sympathetic nervous system activity, which reduces digestive strength.  This, in turn, reduces nutrient absorption and utilization even further. Thus, anyone under stress will need even more nutrients than those that live a very peaceful and quite existence.

Health Warning !!!!!!

True Health Is Not . . .

• How good you feel when you wake up in the morning
• A favorable lab, radiology or physical exam report from your physician
• The sculpture of your physique
• Your ability to run in a triathlon
• The absence of disease

True Health Is . . .

• Being the absolute best you can be with the conditions you were given in the situation in which you now live.
• Empowering our bodies to perform at their optimal level

Do you have true health? 

Robert Allen Creating Wealth

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