What are free radicals?
A lot is been said these days about free radicals and how dangerous they can be when coursing through the body. There have been many adverts on TV about free radicals and how they affect the body. Although there are very few full descriptions of what they really are.
Radicals are unstable molecules that are missing an electron, and so travel around trying to become stable by attaching to any other molecules or compounds and sharing one of their electrons. By doing this the free radical does become stable, but this makes whatever molecule or compound or organic material that it is attached to become unstable by making it become a free radicals itself. Very often the attached cannot travel and therefore remains unstable, that causes it to interfere with its own internal electrical devices, as well as starting a chain reaction that spreads the robbing of sub atomic particles and general instability.
As you can imagine, this can be very dangerous to the cell, and can cause a multitude of very serious problems. Although this rarely happens to be very severe, there are cases where this has been directly responsible for the beginning of a cancer cell, or at least a cell that continues to grow and divide, without ever dying. These growths are usually quite small, but there are instances where these have grown to very noticeable sizes.
Radicals can also be made quite naturally as a byproduct from the body own processes, such as byproducts of bacteria, blood cells, and toxins. Smoking and alcohol has also been linked to the excessive production of free radicals.
Heart disease has been attributed to radicals in a minor degree, although this is only a contributing factor, and there are many other things that contribute to this condition. But they also can produce problems with the eyes and the retina which is irreversible, but this is only the case with heavy smokers or heavy drinkers. These two culprits are also responsible for a great many cancers, not for the chemicals they impart, but more for the amount of free radicals that they produce. We have already covered other cancers that they can produce and growths. The point of issue here is the premature aging of the skin, as well as premature aging of certain organs.
We have all seen commercials where the benefits of antioxidant have been shown. This is particularly useful when we realize that the antioxidants prefer to react with the unstable free radicals and thus stabilizing them with absolutely no ill effect whatsoever. The endless cycle of sharing electrons is now broken, and with enough antioxidants in the system, potential cell damage is greatly decreased.
Increasing our consumption of antioxidants will greatly benefit the immune system, and reduce possible eye damage, improve blood flow and slowdown the aging process of our organs, arteries, and cells. As well as a great many foods that produce natural antioxidants our body produces enzymes that have the same properties as antioxidants as well as gluthioneperoxidase,cataleseans superoxide dismutase.
