Eric Bakker N.D.April 4, 2022

Antioxidants are a major way to slow the impact of free-radical damage. Free-radical damage plays a role in everything from aging to illness.

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Antioxidants Slow Ageing

The quality of your life depends a great deal on the quality of your diet, and in particular, the health-giving qualities of the foods you consume. Does it therefore not make sense to eat the healthiest foods you can? Obviously, this will not always be achievable or even possible at all times, but it is important to consume daily several helpings of fresh fruit and vegetables if you wish to obtain the maximum benefit from the antioxidant power from your diet.

Finding the Right Antioxidant Rich Foods

While the body process and benefit from antioxidants anti-aging benefits through careful antioxidant supplementation, the best place to get these much needed organic compounds is through rich, brightly coloured produce high in the ORAC rating. Foods like blueberries, avocados, sweet potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, carrots, squash, shellfish, lean red meat, eggs, citrus fruits and wheat germ are some of your best sources of foods rich in antioxidants.

When looking to balance your antioxidant intake, it is important to vary the antioxidant rich foods you consume. Broccoli, for instance, is rich in Vitamin C, while spinach is a greater source of folic acid. In order for you to reap the most anti-aging benefits of antioxidants, I recommend you to eat these fresh fruits and vegetables every day.

By eating a diet rich in processed and take-away foods, your body will experience sped up ageing with the accumulating free-radicals in your body, predisposing you prematurely to one of many chronic and degenerative diseases.

Eating the rights foods daily is the best way to boost your natural levels of antioxidants anti-aging benefits. The healthier the cells of the body are, the more youthful the skin will look, the more quickly the body will repair itself from damage and the younger you will feel every day.

The best way to achieve a high level of antioxidants daily in your diet is to consume fresh foods and take a high potency antioxidant supplement.


Articles Of Interest

Health Benefits Of A Diet Rich In Antioxidants:

  • Daily protection from the ageing process.
  • Improved overall health and appearance.
  • Younger appearance compared to your peers.
  • Protection from cognitive (brain function) decline.
  • Better skin tone, fewer blemishes, thicker hair.
  • Increased alertness, concentration, feeling awake.
  • Less prone to development of  age-related diseases.

How Do We Age?

elderly manWe know that growing old and ageing makes us frail, can be painful and make us more vulnerable to illness, injury, and trauma. So, what can antioxidants do to change the ageing process and keep us young and healthy for longer?
A powerful antioxidant should contain a complex of broad spectrum flavonoid antioxidants and phenolic acids which are proven to slow down the ageing process – not just the visible signs of ageing, like fine lines and wrinkles, but the critical hidden oxidative stress damage that is linked to a host of age related degenerative diseases such as arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, cognitive function and strokes.

There are many theories about how and why we age. One of the most plausible theories is that free radicals cause enormous damage to your cells, and this causes your body to age. It is simply impossible to avoid free radicals.

In fact, your body burns glucose for energy and then naturally produces harmful by-products. These by-products are called “free radicals”. Free radicals have an extra electron, which is extremely unstable and reacts with oxygen to cause oxidative stress.

Pollution, chemicals, processed foods and even exercise can cause excessive free radicals in your body. Some of the most damaging causes of free radical damage occur from cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, both common habits in the Western world. Apart from stress, the accumulation of free radical damage is one of the main reason we age.

Free radicals cause chromosome damage and cellular damage. But there is good news antioxidants will neutralise or “quench” free radicals and help to reduce their damaging effects on the body.

There are many natural substances that fight free radicals. Vitamins A, C, and E are free radical scavengers. Beta-carotene, selenium, and alpha lipoic acid are also antioxidants which combine with free radicals to stop their damage.

Fewer Calories Means Longer Lifespan

Another interesting theory on ageing is calorie reduction. We know that those who reduce the amount they eat as they age increase their life expectancy. Calorie reduction has increased the life span of animals. One reason for this is that fewer free radicals are formed and they do less damage to the body.
Free radicals often set off a chain reaction in your body. This causes more and more free radicals and greater damage to your body. This constant assault on your cells causes damage to the DNA. And when your cells replicate, they are no longer perfect. Whatever we can do to reduce or stop free radicals will cause a younger, healthier body.

And this is where antioxidants come into effect. As we age, our cells find it harder and harder to fight off free radicals. Antioxidants will slow the cellular aging process. You must supplement with antioxidants to keep your cellular damage to a minimum.

Some say that we die because our cells age. It takes a while for the damage to get to a level where it harms us, but eventually it does. The protein fibres keeping your skin and arteries elastic go through changes that lead to loss of that vital flexibility. The DNA inside your cells gets damaged and the number of times our cells will divide is reduced too. Ultimately, the cells production and energy systems fail. It is this accumulation of DNA damage and change that can be attributed to the ageing process itself and the start of many diseases and conditions.

Antioxidants Are What Anti-Aging Is About

Foods that combat free radicals include vegetables and fruits. Fruits and vegetables contain vitamins that neutralise free radicals. they are chock full of antioxidants, especially those fruits and vegetables with a high ORAC rating.The longest living people in the world all achieve a very high intake of antioxidants, measured at over 6000 ORAC units a day. To give you an idea, an average daily intake of antioxidants through a normal diet is a lowly 600 – 1000.

Telomeres

A telomere is a region of repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration. Telomeres protect a cell’s chromosomes from fusing with each other or rearranging—abnormalities which can lead to cancer—and so cells are normally destroyed when their telomeres are consumed. Most cancers result from “immortal” cells which have ways of evading this programmed destruction.
Antioxidants have a positive effect in the body by maintaining the length of telomeres while the body gets older. This effect would be highly beneficial for every cell in the body. A current scientific theory supports that oxidative stress is involved in the shortening of telomeres throughout the lifespan. Given the highly effective anti-oxidant actions of many powerful antioxidants, not that surprising that the telomere research has found antioxidants to slow down the shortening of these important DNA sequences.

DNA

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the genetic material that controls heredity and is located in the cell nucleus. They think the ongoing attack on DNA by free radicals plays a major role in the age-related development of many diseases, including cancer. DNA damage reduction after supplementation with antioxidants as measured by the comet assay was considerable after 6 weeks and highly significant after just 12 weeks of supplementation.

Antioxidant Power

Antioxidants increase lifespan. They conducted longevity trials over a period of several years with laboratory mice receiving antioxidants in their everyday food. The aim of this was to find out whether the mice receiving antioxidants would live longer than a group of mice that were not fed any antioxidants. These trials caused no harm, discomfort or suffering to the mice – in fact, the mice receiving the antioxidants lived longer, healthier lives than the control mice.

 

 

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