How Antioxidants Help You Live Longer and Fight Diseases
What is it | Importance | Sources | Action
Evidence-based. Credit goes to all researchers.
Discover the health benefits of antioxidants and the types of antioxidants that can protect you against different diseases. Find out which foods are high in antioxidants and how to incorporate them into your diet.
This article contains 13 different antioxidants that protect you against different diseases.
1. Understanding Antioxidants: What They Do and Why They’re Important 🤔
Antioxidants are stable molecules that reverse the damage caused by highly reactive unstable free radicals.
Antioxidants slow down the oxidative process, present in all living plants and animals (Halliwell, 1996b).
The oxidative process is the outcome of oxygen and nitrogen chemical reactions in our body and is generated during metabolism (Halliwell, 1996a)
They fight by donating an electron to a free radical (Lobo et al., 2010).
Free radicals
Free Radicals are waste produced by cells in our bodies and are continuously generated during metabolism (Li et al., 2014).
2. The Benefits of Antioxidants for Protecting Against Diseases 🤔
Antioxidants are important because there’s a high correlation between free radicals and cancer and many well-known diseases such as (Li et al., 2014)
- diabetes
- cataract
- cardiovascular diseases
- Parkinson’s disease
- Alzheimer’s disease
- arthritis
Free radicals in balance cant cause cancer or diseases as it is needed and produced daily from metabolism, but when the number of free radicals present in the body overtakes the antioxidants your body undergoes a term known as oxidative stress (Lobo et al., 2010).
Oxidative stress leads to cell damage by changing the structure and role of lipids and proteins, mutating and transforming the cell (Lobo et al., 2010).
When our body undergoes a prolonged period of oxidative stress, it increases our risk of cancer and disease.
Very high concentrations of free radicals can even cause cell death (Burton & Jauniaux, 2011).
Oxidative Stress is common as we don’t think about this balance. It is easy to be under oxidative stress.
Free radical sources
To protect against free radicals we must first know how they are produced, the most naturally occurring way is from metabolism, which no one can avoid. (Li et al., 2014)
Inflammatory foods such as fried foods are also another contributor to a surplus of free radical production, this is something we can control and lessen in our diet (Lobo et al., 2010).
Now that we know that we can not stop free radicals from forming since it’s produced continuously by metabolism, we can see how maintaining a balance of free radicals and antioxidants is important.
Other common sources that cause excess free radical production include the environment you are in such as (Lobo et al., 2010)
- smoking
- pollution
- radiation
- pesticides
- ozone
- X-rays
We are daily subjugated to the excess production of free radicals, depending on our environment. Due to all these external and internal stimuli, it is vital we consume antioxidants.
Example
The more things you see on this list as part of your daily life, the more important it is for you to consume more antioxidants to offset the free radicals. For example, if you are a labourer working under the sun with no protection, smoking during your breaks and eating fried foods for your lunch. You are generating excess free radicals within your body, on top of what your body and everyone else already generates continuously from metabolism.
According to Bendich (2001), The RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) of vitamin C for antioxidant protection is 90/mg for men and 75mg/day for women. If you are a smoker this RDA is increased by 35mg/day.
3. Types of Antioxidants and thier Sources 😋
The majority and the best sources of antioxidants come from fruits and vegetables (Carlsen et al., 2010). No particular fruit or vegetable contains all the antioxidants your body needs, which is why a varied diet is important.
Our body naturally produces antioxidants such as glutathione, and uric acid during metabolism. The main antioxidants for defence are (Vitamins) C, E and B- Carotene which our body converts to Vitamin A, these cannot be made within our body. This is why we must get them from our diet. (Lobo et al., 2010).
Whole foods vs supplements
Antioxidants should be consumed naturally, and if your budget allows, from organic sources as it doesn’t contain pesticides. Research papers by Li et al. (2014) and Lobo et al. (2010) both tell how antioxidant supplements (pills) are not necessary. They don’t provide the same benefits and may even be risky.
Antioxidants
Types of antioxidants what they protect against, and the best sources
| Antioxidant | Protects Against | Best Examples |
| Anthocyanin | Cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases, liver cancer | Berries |
| Astaxanthin | Ageing, Alzheimer’s disease and inflammation | Salmon |
| Carotene | Eye diseases caused by diabetes | Carrots |
| Cocoa polyphenol | Arteriosclerosis, coronary heart disease, and alcoholic liver | Cacao powder |
| Flavonoids | Cardiovascular disease, arthritis, Alzheimer’s disease, stroke | Manuka Honey |
| Green tea polyphenols | Ageing, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, tumours and inflammation | Matcha (Green tea) |
| Isoflavonoids | Prostate, ovarian, cervical and breast cancers | Soybean |
| Lycopene | Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases | Roma Tomatoes |
| Peach polyphenols | Breast cancer | Peaches |
| Red wine polyphenols (Resveratrol) | Diabetes, cardiovascular diseases | Red Grapes |
| Vitamin C | Cardiovascular disease, cancer, and cirrhosis | Fresh fruits and vegetables |
| Vitamin E | Lung, skin and prostate cancers | Almonds |
| Xanthones | Inflammation, nerve injury | Mangosteen |
Action to take ✍️
Adding a multitude of different antioxidant sources has been proven by many different research studies to lower the risk of cancers and diseases (Li et al., 2014).
Find your favourite sources of each type of antioxidant from whole foods and have them daily.
Something to think about
I feel the reason why women on average live longer than men is because of their lifestyle and diet compared to men. For example, in this research paper on anthocyanins by Wallace and Giustic (2015) “Women, on average, had a higher daily intake of anthocyanins (12.6 ± 1.5 mg/d) compared with men (10.5 ± 0.8 mg/d). Mean intakes of anthocyanins have also been shown to be significantly different among various racial/ethnic groups, with white individuals having higher mean daily intakes (12.5 ± 1.3 mg/d) than Hispanic (10.1 ± 1.2 mg/d) and non-Hispanic black (8.9 ± 0.9 mg/d) populations in the United States”.
These studies make sense when you think about why on average the lifespan of white or Japanese people is higher than those of black/Hispanic and Indian populations. This is mainly due to their diet. The Italians have their tomatoes and olive oil. The Japanese have their matcha. The whites have a higher intake of anthocyanins from berries.
If these studies support the fact that antioxidants lower the risk of many cancer and diseases, it should be a no-brainer that all races should incorporate the findings of this into our diet.
Due to health literacy, most people can’t understand the importance of antioxidants, which is why I urge you to share the importance of antioxidants with those you care about.
If you want to have a better understating of how antioxidants work at the scientific level giving the scholarly articles a quick skim can deepen your understanding. But the main thing to do is to take action.
References 🤓
Ambati, R., Phang, S. M., Ravi, S., & Aswathanarayana, R. (2014). Astaxanthin: Sources, Extraction, Stability, Biological Activities and Its Commercial Applications—A Review. Marine Drugs, 12(1), 128–152. https://doi.org/10.3390/md12010128
Bendich, A. (2001). Dietary reference intakes for vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, and carotenoids institute of medicine washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000 ISBN: 0–309-06935-1. Nutrition, 17(4), 364. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0899-9007(00)00596-7
Burton, G. J., & Jauniaux, E. (2011). Oxidative stress. Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 25(3), 287–299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpobgyn.2010.10.016
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