The Truth About Antioxidants

August 22, 2011, By Josh Katzowitz 3 comments

Josh Katzowitz

We don’t really know the affects of antioxidants. Let’s start with that declaration. We’re just not entirely sure.

We know what they’re supposed to do. We know that they can have a significant impact on our body. We’re pretty sure that they have a positive, healthy impact in fighting some of our body’s most dangerous toxins.

But that’s not 100 percent certain either. We ingest our antioxidants—“Eat lots of blueberries and red beans, drink lots of red wine and green tea, take Vitamin C, Vitamin E and beta-carotene supplements,” we’re told, “because they have boatloads of antioxidants”—but we’re not really sure if they’re doing us as much good as we like to think.

Antioxidants seem like a cure-all. They stave off cancer, keep us safe from heart disease and act as an anti-aging solution. But there are still plenty of questions of how much is actually true. And where there are billions of dollars spent—namely the vitamin and supplements industry—there are billions of questions that need to be asked.

Here’s a summary of the function that antioxidants serve. Unbalanced atoms called free radicals float throughout our bodies, and since they’re in need of electrons, they latch onto the first thing they can find—an otherwise-healthy cell, for instance. Thing is, free radicals don’t care about symbiotic relationships. They are, first and foremost, scavengers who will inflict major damage on your cells, if possible.

Too many free radicals could cause a host of diseases—including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and cancer. You know how you increase your free radical count? Too much alcohol, too many drugs, eating too many processed foods.

But you also can’t rid the body of free radicals since they’re useful to your immune system, and they help turn food into energy. Know this, though: your body is constantly being hit by blasts from the free radicals.

Antioxidants help neutralize the free radicals. Instead of a free radical latching on to another molecule in your body and stealing its electron, thus beginning a potentially dangerous chain reaction, antioxidants donate an electron to the free radical.

Cut down on those rogue free radicals, and you’re lowering your chances of heart disease, cancer and, somewhat less importantly, wrinkles. This is what some experts say. But other experts say antioxidants may reduce the effects of chemotherapy and radiation and could actually increase the chances of lung cancer in smokers.

It seems taking antioxidant supplements isn’t necessarily the cure-all solution we thought a few years ago, especially if you’re overloading yourself. In fact, many experts aren’t quite sure what to believe.