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By
Dr. Joseph Mercola
with Rachael Droege
Antioxidants are powerful nutrients found in certain foods. As
their name suggests, they work to protect your health by fighting
against free radicals in your body and preventing damage from oxidation.
Antioxidants are a necessity to every diet because no matter how
healthy a lifestyle you lead you will be exposed to free radicals.
In fact, we are all exposed to free radicals everyday,
Some free radicals are generated from normal body functions like
breathing, metabolism and physical activity. Others are created
by the immune system to neutralize viruses and bacteria. Still others
are a result of environmental factors including pollution, radiation,
herbicides and cigarette smoke. Free radicals attack healthy cells,
causing them to weaken and become more susceptible to disease.
While your body is certainly capable of
neutralizing free radicals, if you:
- Eat a mostly junk food/processed food diet
- Don’t get enough sleep
- Are under a lot of stress
- Are exposed to a high number of free radicals (via pollution,
smoking, etc.)
... then your body may become overwhelmed and damage can occur.
Further, free radical damage does accumulate with age so the longer
your lifestyle and/or environment permits free radical damage, the
greater the consequences will be later on.
The easiest and most important way to stop free radical damage
is to fortify your diet with antioxidant-rich foods (Of course,
if you smoke or live in an excessively polluted environment, quitting
or moving, respectively, may be a worthwhile investment in your
future health.). These will provide natural protection from environmental
and inherent free radical exposure. But that’s not all. Antioxidants
are important for many reasons, some of which are just beginning
to be explained.
For instance, flavonoids, found fruits and vegetables, are the
largest group of several thousand compounds belonging to the antioxidant-rich
polyphenol family. Flavonoids are further broken down into subclasses
that you have likely heard of such as anthocyanins, flavonols, flavones,
flavanones and flavanols. Research has shown very clearly that flavonoids
have many health-promoting properties. As written in The
Antioxidant Miracle, flavonoids:
- Improve memory and concentration and are used to treat attention
deficit disorder
- Are powerful free radical scavengers that can boost the effectiveness
of vitamin C in the antioxidant network
- Regulate nitric oxide, a potent free radical that is a regulator
of blood flow
- Keep your heart healthy in three important ways: They prevent
blood clots, protect against oxidation of LDL (bad) cholesterol,
and lower high blood pressure
- Improve sexual function in men
- Reduce inflammation and bolster immune function
If you are already following the diet plan recommended in my
new book, then you are likely getting plenty of antioxidants
from the foods you eat. However, most Americans do not eat nearly
enough antioxidant-rich foods. The topic is becoming so important
that a June
2004 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture analyzed the
antioxidant content of commonly consumed foods and released a list
of the top antioxidant fruits, vegetables and nuts. Among the top
rankings were berries, including wild blueberries, cranberries,
blackberries, raspberries, strawberries and cherries, and beans
and artichokes also ranked surprisingly high.
Researchers at the USDA Human Nutrition Center (HNRCA) have also
ranked blueberries #1 in antioxidant activity when compared to 40
other fresh fruits and vegetables, as they contain powerful phytochemicals,
such as anthocyanin, which is the pigment that gives blueberries
their color.
A study in the June
2003 Journal of Nutrition found that natural compounds in Bing
cherries may reduce painful arthritic inflammation and help lessen
the severity of other inflammatory conditions, such as cardiovascular
disease or cancer. Although this study was done with cherries it
is likely that blueberries will cause the same improvement.
How
to Fortify Your Diet With Antioxidants
So how can you get more antioxidants into your diet? One of the
quickest ways is to make a vegetable
juice, using vegetables tailored to your metabolic
type, with some added fresh blueberries, cherries or other berries.
You can certainly opt to eat fresh berries as well, but due to
their sugar content I don’t recommend eating too many at once,
as this will cause your insulin levels to rise.
What I do recommend, and which I now eat personally everyday, are
CherryFlex and Wild Blueberry
IQ Softgels. These convenient capsules maintain the health benefits
of whole fruit just as Mother Nature intended but without the natural
sugars and pasteurization of juice concentrates. The tart cherries
and wild blueberries used in these softgels are laboratory tested
and contain the most anthocyanins on the market. As I mentioned,
I eat a couple of these capsules everyday not only for the great
health benefits but also for the flavor. You can actually chew on
the softgels--they taste that good!
But no matter what source you choose, be sure to include antioxidant-rich
foods in your diet everyday. Doing so will protect your body from
the long-term and cumulative effects of free radical damage. There
are so many antioxidant-rich foods to choose from that it’s
easy to find the ones you enjoy and make them a regular part of
your meals.
Related Articles:
Antioxidants: The Good,
The Bad and the Evil
Berries--The Best Overall
Fruits for Your Health
Berries: A Great
Source of Plant Antioxidants
Want to Live Longer? Eat
More Flavonoids!
Plant Compounds Eradicate
Disease
More Antioxidants in
Organic Food Than Conventionally Grown Food
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