Archive for the ‘Antioxidants’ Category
Best Natural Antioxidants
Nature is wise and through its food has given us everything we need, to a remedy to combat aging. The antioxidants in various fruits and vegetables helps us to prevent the effects of age and heart disease among other wonders.
Antioxidants act to fight with the body to eliminate free radicals, which are all internal and external agents that are toxic to health and accelerate aging. These range from those contained in the snuff or alcohol, as well as what we receive from the environment such as air pollution. Read the rest of this entry »
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Antioxidants and Health
Antioxidants (free radical scavengers) are a group of substances present in certain foods (vitamins, minerals and other natural colorants plant compounds) and enzymes found in our bodies and involved in many metabolic processes (super oxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione, coenzyme Q10, etc.) that neutralize the damage that free radicals can cause in our body.
Antioxidants are found in the foods we eat and the supplements we take. Antioxidants can prevent hundreds of diseases. No two are exactly alike antioxidants, each act specifically in different tissues of the body. Likewise, there are powerful antioxidants, which mean it has an ORAC (Absorption Capacity Oxygen Radical) different.
Free radicals are responsible for the processes of aging, degeneration and cell death. Free radicals are released into natural metabolic processes in our bodies, are molecules that lose an electron to travel through our bodies react with other molecules and “stealing” the electron they lack, thus turning this into another free radical. The ability of free radicals react with any molecule is very high, causing great damage in cell membranes. Read the rest of this entry »
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Antioxidants And Essential Vitamins
Cellular aging is not only the genetic influence of the environmental factors called “quality of life.”
Food is very important to prevent aging
On the other side of the right and the right diet, more exposure to environmental chemicals are also important for this process.
Overall note that restrictions on food (eat little but balanced) prolong life, while the shorter-calorie diet.
Food problem is very important to prevent aging, and that through what we eat naturally take antioxidants.
But people who do not have the time needed to introduce the appropriate dose of vitamins through the daily diet, should be chosen for the transaction they proposed replacing the laboratory and the basic needs.
Antioxidant function of vitamin
Today it is possible to distinguish which is the function of each vitamin in our bodies met, namely:
Vitamin E: Delaying cell aging caused by oxidation, ie the cells that defend the actions of free radicals oxidation and prevent chronic disease.
Vitamin C: delay aging disorders and work on the immune system.
Acting beta-carotene combined with vitamins C and E to maintain the level of cell activity and to purify the role of oxidants in cells.
Selenium has anti-cancer effect, protect the heart and kill some viruses.
Zinc strengthens the immune system and fight aging in all its forms.
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Natural Antioxidants from Fruits
Who has not heard of products such as juices and smoothies, vitamin A, C and E, and even candies that contain vitamins or multiple benefits achieved through the inclusion of plant foods in the diet?
The media insist on the virtues of foodstuffs fortified with vitamins and potential health benefits, praising his role in the fight against “oxidation” of the organism to certain diseases and aging. Today, nutrition and dietetics not only dealing with food components that provide nutritional benefits: proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Other substances properly
What are antioxidants?
This is a group of vitamins, minerals, natural dyes from plants and other compounds and enzymes (substances from our body involved in multiple metabolic processes), which block the damaging effect of so-called free radicals. Most of the antioxidants found in plant foods, which explains that include fruits, legumes, vegetables or whole grains in our diet is so beneficial.
Free radicals and oxidation
Breathing in oxygen is essential for cellular life in our body, but following the same molecules are produced, free radicals, which lead to lifelong negative health effects for their ability to alter the DNA (genes), proteins and lipids or fats.
In our bodies are continually renewing cells (skin, intestine?) And others not (liver cells, neurons?). Over the years, free radicals can cause a genetic defect on the first, increasing the risk of cancer and reduce the functionality of the latter (the cells that are not renewed), which is characteristic of aging.
Habits as common as intense physical exercise, smoking, consumption of diets rich in fat and overexposure to solar radiation and environmental pollution, increase production of free radicals.
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Antioxidants and Radiation Treatment
Radiation therapy is certainly hard on the body. For those who are in the process of going through it, there have been questions regarding whether one can continue taking antioxidants and supplements. The concern is whether it will reduce the effectiveness of the therapy.
While radiation therapy kills cancer cells, it also damages neighboring, non-cancerous cells. For most people who experience radiation injury to the intestine, the condition usually clears up within a few weeks of treatment. But in 10% to 20% of the patients, it persists. The people in this study had all experienced these symptoms for six months or more.
Doctors say that while radiation proctitis can be a very disabling condition for many people, that taking antioxidant treatments [with vitamins E and C] makes a lot of sense. Evidence now suggests it may possibly work as a first-line treatment for patients who experience diarrhea, urgency, or fecal incontinence.
What do antioxidants do? They protect cells from DNA damage that can be caused by unstable forms of oxygen called free radicals. High radiation doses aimed at a prostate, cervical or endometrial cancer cause high levels of free radicals that create enough DNA damage to destroy the malignant cells. But, stray radiation can also damage the nearby rectum.
Vitamin E is a potent antioxidant, and vitamin C increases the effects of vitamin E.
Research by Cancer Treatment Centers of America have found that antioxidants provide nutritional benefits to cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment without interfering with the treatment itself.
The study, entitled “Effect of Concomitant Naturopathic Therapies on Clinical Tumor Response to External Beam Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer,” was presented at the non-profit Society of Integrative Oncology’s Third International Conference in Boston.
Most doctors said they felt that radiation therapy, chemotherapy and surgery are the best treatment options for cancer patients, but the side effects of the treatments can be physically and emotionally damaging. In the past, doctors were concerned about antioxidant use with radiation treatment in that it might interfere with the cancer cell oxidation levels that assist chemotherapy and radiation in killing tumors. To address this, the Cancer Treatment Centers of America researchers analyzed the prostate specific antigen (PSA) levels of prostate cancer patients after radiation therapy, and found no difference between the control group and the group using antioxidants such as green tea extract, melatonin, high-potency multivitamins, vitamin C and vitamin E.
Doctors say that the study provides evidence that antioxidants as a complementary therapy in cancer treatment does not interfere with external beam radiation therapy and that antioxidants are one of many complementary and alternative medicine therapies that are crucial in today’s fight against cancer.
More than 80 percent of the cancer patients interviewed for the report said they had used some sort of complementary and alternative medicine treatment, many without any sort of medical supervision.
In the end, it was proven that taking antioxidants helped patients and was beneficial to their overall sense of well-being in addition to helping them assimilate to the radiation.
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