I Am Not A Test Tube!

I try to eat healthy, exercise and simply enjoy life. I also take supplements to get my recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals. However, during my journey to stay healthy, I started hearing one word over and over again. “Antioxidants.” What are they, anyway?It seems that everyone is jumping on the band wagon when it comes to promoting their product which contains antioxidants. I have seen commercials promoting anything from chocolate to dog food; and I have heard sales pitches from nutrition companies. Honestly, I never gave much thought to what antioxidants were. I mean, who cares?

But now I want to understand what people are saying, so I did a little research. To explain antioxidants, I will start off with explaining something that we are already familiar with. Oxidation. What happens to a shovel when you leave it outside in the rain? It rusts. What happens to an apple when you slice it and leave it on the counter? It starts turning brown. You get the idea - that is what oxidation does.

Well, it is the same for your body. As cells function normally in the body, they produce damaged molecules — called free radicals (oxidation). These free radicals are the bad guys (boo, hiss!). These thugs steal from the good cells such as fat, protein,  thereby damaging the good cells. This damage continues in a chain reaction, and soon, your good cells will die. We need these good cells to stay healthy and alive!

Antioxidants help prevent widespread good cell destruction by donating components to stabilize free radicals (so they will stop stealing from the good cells). More importantly, antioxidants reinforce the good cells’, making them healthier, which allows them to perform their duties of keeping you healthy. When there are not enough antioxidants in your body, free radicals begin damaging healthy cells which, in turn, can lead to problems. For example, free radical damage to immune cells can lead to an increased risk of infections. So antioxidants really are a good thing.But how do you know which antioxidants will actually help you? Would you like to know how many products prove their claims? They check it in a TEST TUBE. Laboratories test levels using a method called ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity). Anybody can have their product tested if they simply pay for it.

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