ANTIOXIDANTS

What are antioxidants?

Antioxidants are molecules that fight free radicals in your body.

Free radicals are compounds that can cause harm if their levels become too high in your
body. They’re linked to multiple illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Your body has its own antioxidant defences to keep free radicals in check.

However, antioxidants are also found in food, especially in fruits, vegetables, and other
plant-based, whole foods. Several vitamins, such as vitamins E and C, are effective
antioxidants.

Antioxidant preservatives also play a crucial role in food production by increasing shelf life.

How free radicals function?

Free radicals are constantly being formed in your body.

Without antioxidants, free radicals would cause serious harm very quickly, eventually
resulting in death.

However, free radicals also serve important functions that are essential for health (1Trusted
Source).

For example, your immune cells use free radicals to fight infections (2Trusted Source).

As a result, your body needs to maintain a certain balance of free radicals and antioxidants.

When free radicals outnumber antioxidants, it can lead to a state called oxidative stress.

Prolonged oxidative stress can damage your DNA and other important molecules in your
body. Sometimes it even leads to cell death.

Damage to your DNA increases your risk of cancer, and some scientists have theorized that it
plays a pivotal role in the aging process (3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source).

Several lifestyle, stress, and environmental factors are known to promote excessive free
radical formation and oxidative stress, including:

 Air pollution
 Cigarette smoke
 Alcohol intake
 Toxins
 high blood sugar levels (5Trusted Source, 6Trusted Source)
 high intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids (7Trusted Source)
  radiation, including excessive sunbathing
 bacterial, fungal, or viral infections
 excessive intake of iron, magnesium, copper, or zinc (1Trusted Source)
 too much or too little oxygen in your body (8Trusted Source)
 intense and prolonged exercise, which causes tissue damage (9Trusted Source)
 excessive intake of antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E (1Trusted Source)
 antioxidant deficiency (10Trusted Source)

Prolonged oxidative stress leads to an increased risk of negative health outcomes, such as
cardiovascular disease and certain types of cancer.

Antioxidants in foods

Antioxidants are essential for the survival of all living things.

Your body generates its own antioxidants, such as the cellular antioxidant glutathione.

Plants and animals, as well as all other forms of life, have their own defenses against free
radicals and oxidative damage.

Therefore, antioxidants are found in all whole foods of plant and animal origin.

Adequate antioxidant intake is important. In fact, your life depends on the intake of certain
antioxidants — namely, vitamins C and E.

Types of dietary antioxidants

Antioxidants can be categorized as either water- or fat-soluble.

Water-soluble antioxidants perform their actions in the fluid inside and outside cells,
whereas fat-soluble ones act primarily in cell membranes.

Important dietary antioxidants include:

 Vitamin C. This water-soluble antioxidant is an essential dietary nutrient.

 Vitamin E. This fat-soluble antioxidant plays a critical role in protecting cell
membranes against oxidative damage.
 Flavonoids. This group of plant antioxidants has many beneficial health effects
(18Trusted Source).

Vitamin C-also called ascorbic acid, plays many important roles in the body. In particular, it
is key to the immune system, helping prevent infections and fight disease.

Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin that’s found in many foods, particularly fruits and
vegetables.

It’s well known for being a potent antioxidant, as well as having positive effects on skin
health and immune function.
The human body cannot produce or store vitamin C. Therefore, it’s essential to consume it
regularly in sufficient amounts.

Example of Vitamin C

 *Red Sweet Peppers

 *Green Sweet Peppers
 *Brocolli
 *Tomato Juice
 *Cabbage

Vitamin E -is a group of powerful antioxidants that protect your cells from oxidative stress.
Adequate vitamin E levels are essential for the body to function

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin.

Function

Vitamin E has the following functions:

It is an antioxidant. This means it protects body tissue from damage caused by substances
called free radicals. Free radicals can harm cells, tissues, and organs. They are believed to
play a role in certain conditions related to aging. The body also needs vitamin E to help keep
the immune system strong against viruses and bacteria. Vitamin E is also important in the
formation of red blood cells. It helps the body use vitamin K. It also helps widen blood
vessels and keep blood from clotting inside them. Cells use vitamin E to interact with each
other. It helps them carry out many important functions.

Whether vitamin E can prevent cancer, heart disease, dementia, liver disease, and stroke still
requires further research.

Vitamin E is found in the following foods:

 *Vegetable oils (such as wheat germ, sunflower, safflower, corn, and soybean oils)
 *Nuts (such as almonds, peanuts, and hazelnuts/filberts)
 *Seeds (such as sunflower seeds)
 *Green leafy vegetables (such as spinach and broccoli)
 *Fortified breakfast cereals, fruit juices, margarine, and spreads.

Flavanoids
Antioxidant Benefits

Because many flavonoids—and especially those belonging to two flavonoid subgroups called
flavonols and flavan-3-ols—can be effective in reducing free radical damage to cells and
other components in body tissue, they provide antioxidant benefits. It is not clear, however,
if we should be thinking about flavonoids as falling into the same category as more widely
known antioxidant nutrients like vitamin C or vitamin E.

One reason for this is because their concentration in the bloodstream is so much lower.
Another reason lies in the fact that many of the antioxidant functions of the flavonoids are
not performed by the flavonoids themselves, but by forms of the flavonoids that have been
altered by our metabolism. Even though we do not know all the details about the way
flavonoids function as antioxidants, however, studies have documented better protection of
certain cell types—for example, red blood cells—following consumption of flavonoid-rich
foods. Blueberries, for example, have been repeatedly studied in this context for their
flavonoid-related antioxidant benefits.

In this antioxidant context, it is also worth pointing out the potentially unique relationship
between flavonoids and vitamin C. Recent studies have shown the ability of flavonoids to
alter transport of vitamin C, as well as to alter function of an enzyme called ascorbate
oxidase, which converts vitamin C into a non-vitamin form (monodehydroascorbate). While
we do not yet know the full meaning of these relationships, it is clear that the transport and
cycling of vitamin C is flavonoid related. This association makes sense to us, since so many
foods high in vitamin C (such as our top five WHFoods for vitamin C are papaya, bell
peppers, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and strawberries) are also high in flavonoids.

Flavonoids are a group of compounds usually found in fruits, vegetables, grains, bark, roots,
stems, flowers, tea, and wine. Flavonoids are known for their anti-inflammatory and anti-
carcinogenic properties, and are “noted for their antioxidant benefits,” nutritionist Jessica
Cording, a New York-based RD, tells Health.