Free Radicals Effects And Antioxidants-1

Effects Of Free Radicals

Free radicals are highly reactive and unstable oxygen molecules that are constantly formed in the body as metabolism waste products. Billion of them are formed constantly. Its effect is harmful and destructive acting on any tissue type.

Among the devastating effects of free radicals, we can find cellular irritations of all kinds, premature aging, cholesterol oxidation, which facilitate the atheroma formation or arterial lipid deposits (atherosclerosis ), mutations in cellular DNA, which can unleash a cancer, etc. Definitely, its role is highly undesirable.


Free radicals and antioxidants
Fortunately, there is another type of molecules that are responsible for neutralizing the free radicals effects: we are talking about antioxidants. These compounds are used by the body to effectively protect from attack by free radicals.


All the antioxidants consists of enzymes, vitamins, minerals, amino acids and other compounds that are linked and combined with free radicals, robbing them their danger effects .


At the end of the chapter a food table by which we can verify that a healthy and natural diet generates fewer free radicals and provide more antioxidants to the body. On the contrary, poor diet and unnatural life provide few antioxidants  and generate a large amount of free radicals.


We will now see what are the most important antioxidants.

Beta -carotene and Vitamin A
Beta-carotene is a substance that can be found in some vegetables, such as carrots or cabbage. Its antioxidant action is powerful. The body can easily convert beta - carotene into vitamin A, and although both substances are essential for life, many researchers believe that it is precisely the beta -carotene who actively protect us against cancer.


Beta carotene benefits
Researchers  of the John Hopkins University concluded that people who have low levels of this substance in the blood, have 4 times higher of getting cancer risk than those who have much higher levels. Other studies corroborate this result, confirming that vitamin A and beta- carotene protect very effectively against tumors.


In addition to the preventive effects of these substances, it has been shown that they can also reverse the growth of already existing tumors. Some cancers have been cured by treatments with carrot and onion.

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