Antioxidants - How They Work

We all know that each and every cell present in our body requires oxygen to stay alive. However, oxygen is also responsible for damaging these body cells due to the process of oxidation. As a result of oxidation, free radicals are formed which have a damaging effect on the cells. Free radicals is a group of chemical substances that have unpaired electrons formed due to loss or gain of electrons. When the damage by the free radicals continues for a long time, it may lead to cancer. Antioxidants can reverse the damage caused by oxidation to some extent. They mainly contain nutritional substances like vitamins and minerals, as well as some enzymes. Let us find out more about antioxidants and how they work.

What Do Antioxidants Do?

What exactly the antioxidants do is best explained with an example. If you keep a slice of apple in open air, after some time you will find that the flesh of the apple has turned brown. This is happens because of oxidation. Now if you apply some lemon juice on the slice of an apple and keep it in open air, the slice will still remain white. It is due to the effect of the antioxidant present in lemon juice. The antioxidants present in our food do the same thing and protect our cells. Basically, the work of an antioxidant is to stop the oxidation process by neutralizing the free radicals formed during oxidation. In order to neutralize the free radicals, the antioxidant itself undergoes oxidation. For this reason, our body needs a constant supply of antioxidants.

Antioxidants - How They Work?

Free radicals formed during oxidation are in a very unstable state, and so they have the tendency to release electrons or absorb a new electron from living cells. Every time an electron is released from or absorbed into any free radical, a new free radical is formed. The newly formed free radicals continue to do the same. In this way, a chain of radicals are formed. If this continues for a long time, it will end up in decaying the living cells. Antioxidants like beta carotene, vitamin C, and vitamin E help to convert the unstable free radical to a stable form. Thus the chain of radicals is broken and the oxidation process stops. The mechanism of antioxidant enzymes like catalase, glutathione etc. is slightly different. These enzymes slow down the rate at which the chain of free radicals is formed. Once the free radicals that are already formed are stabilized, these antioxidants can completely stop the chain of oxidation. The mechanism of each antioxidant is effective only on some specific type of free radicals. On other free radicals, the same antioxidant will be unable to show the intended effect.

Source of Antioxidants

There are several thousand antioxidants that are found in various types of plant foods. Each of them have their own mechanism of functioning. However, all of them serve the purpose working in a team. Vitamin E, vitamin C, selenium, and beta carotene are some of the most commonly known antioxidants. They are also sometimes referred to as anti-aging antioxidants because they help to give us a youthful skin. As our body uses up the antioxidants to get rid of free radicals, it needs to be replenished from time to time by intake of foods that are rich in antioxidants. Intake of antioxidant supplements is another way to replenish the antioxidants in our body. Several studies have found, however, that the supplements often do not contain the proper balance of vitamins, minerals and enzymes that can be obtained from fruits or vegetables. Therefore, the best antioxidants are those found in fruits and vegetables that are brightly colored. Foods high in antioxidants include beets, carrots, spinach, broccoli, tomato, cherries, red grapes, and berries.

'Antioxidants - How They Work' was written with the intention of highlighting the importance of these substances in our daily diet. Apart from the anti-aging effects, antioxidants also play a vital role in preventing the risk of some chronic ailments like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, rheumatoid arthritis etc. It is thus, very important that we constantly replenish these antioxidants so not to suffer from a plethora of ailments.