Aashu’s Dilemma
Winter is Coming! & Aashu’s mother is worried about the health of him and all of his family members. On a daily basis, she prepares vegetable dishes and includes fruits in their daily meals. Aashu is not fond of vegetables & fruits but he is pushed by his mother to consume them.
Her logic is clear, intake of vegetables & fruits will make his body immune against diseases. Aashu knows that veggies & fruits have a lot of nutrients but he doesn’t understand how they can make his immunity better against outside pathogens. He starts searching for that and comes to know about “Antioxidants”. Let’s see what are these. What benefits he can have by adding Antioxidants in foods?
Ashu is searching information on Know Ur Diet about antioxidants benefits and sources of antioxidants. let us see what he finds:
What are Antioxidants?
Antioxidants are nothing but natural substances that prevent you from or slow down the damage to your body cells due to free radicals & unwanted molecules that are produced by your body in response to any environmental change or other pressures.
Sometimes also called “free-radical scavengers”, antioxidants make your daily meal a much more nutritious & immunity booster.
You can get these antioxidants either from natural or artificial sources. Certain plant-based foods are considered a good source of antioxidants. These plant-based nutrients are called phytonutrients. By adding these antioxidants rich foods to your diet, you can minimise the effects of free radicals on your body.
In bioscience, antioxidants are of two forms, one that is produced by our own body called endogenous antioxidants & another one that comes outside of our body called as exogenous.
“Antioxidants are essential for cleaning up free radicals in the body. These are unstable molecules that are formed by normal metabolic processes, pollution, inflammation and lifestyle factors like alcohol, smoking and eating ultra-processed foods”.
– Sophie Medlin, head of nutritional research at supplements brand Heights
How do Antioxidants work?
As we said earlier, antioxidants are compounds that protect our body from the harmful effects of free radicals.
Now what are ‘Free Radicals’?
Free radicals are waste materials that are produced by our cells while processing their food or reacting to the outside environment. The main concern is that, If our body is unable to remove these free radicals, then it can lead to an uncontrolled rise in oxidative stress. This situation can harm the growth of cells & the functioning of your body.
There are many factors linked to the rise of free radical levels in your body. Some of them are internal such as inflammation & other external ones such as UV exposure, smoking cigarettes & pollution.
If unchecked, oxidative stress can turn into chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancers, arthritis, stroke, respiratory diseases & other inflammatory conditions.
Antioxidants are those molecules that are stable in nature and can give an electron to active free radicals, thus reducing their capacity to damage. This allows antioxidants to delay the cellular damage caused by free radicals significantly. Antioxidants can easily interact with free radicals & break down the chain reaction before any cellular damage happens.
What are two different types of Antioxidants?
In a general context, Antioxidants are of two different types- natural & artificial (synthetic). The name itself clarifies why we call one natural & another one artificial.
Natural Antioxidants
Natural Antioxidants are those we get through natural products such as fruits or vegetables. Vitamin E, Vitamin C & B-carotene are some micronutrients that can be called natural Antioxidants.
Artificial Antioxidants
Artificial Antioxidants are produced through chemical processes. They are widely used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals & animal nutrition industries.
Artificial antioxidants played a major role in the significant growth of the food industry but due to the concerns related to their impact on health, they are losing ground. In a couple of years, natural antioxidants have replaced them & they are getting much more priority in diets.
Importance of Antioxidants against Chronic Diseases
When it comes to health benefits then antioxidants have plenty of them to offer. As per one research, antioxidants are termed radical scavengers, hydrogen donors, electron donors, peroxide decomposers, enzyme inhibitors & synergists.
Antioxidants can prevent or slow down the process of oxidative stress that can damage your body cells. This process is responsible for different health problems that can increase the risk of chronic diseases.
Oxidative stress is a process where free radicals react with the protein & DNA of a cell & create a chain reaction that ultimately causes damage to enzymes, receptors & membrane of a cell. This all leads to cell mutation & transformation, increasing the risk of many chronic diseases in the human body.
Antioxidants such as vitamin C, Vitamin-E & B-carotene are well-known to slow down this process of oxidative stress & damage to the DNA & cell structure. Antioxidant benefits can be taken by consuming natural or artificial sources.
Antioxidants Benefits
As we talked have above, Antioxidants provide a good defence against the free radicals that are responsible for causing different chronic diseases. Following are some diseases that are caused by the uncontrolled rise of free radicals in your body & having antioxidants in the diet can help you in tackling them: –
Have Anti-Aging Properties
Antioxidants are preferred to slow down the ageing process, as they prevent free radicals from damaging the cells in your body. Free radicals are responsible for damaging cells of skin, hairs & muscles that can stimulate the ageing process. A considerable intake of antioxidants can help you to have a better quality of life
Lower Risk of Cancer
Free radicals attack your cell structure that can damage its DNA. They can cause the mutation or transformation of cells & ultimately result in cancer. Antioxidants can significantly lower the risk of certain cancers, as they prevent free radicals from damaging DNA & causing mutation in cells.
Control Heart Diseases
In recent years, heart diseases have taken the lives of more Indians than road accidents & terror attacks. Free radicals are responsible for increasing the risk of heart disease by reacting with LDL (bad cholesterol) & this reaction damages blood vessels & endothelial cells whose good health is essential in tackling heart disease. Antioxidants like B-carotene & Vitamin E can help in preventing this reaction from occurring.
Protect from Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s is a disease of losing memory & old age people are most vulnerable to it. Many studies have indicated that free radicals are significantly responsible for this disease as they damage the brain cells causing Alzheimer’s. Antioxidants are effective in reducing the chances of Alzheimer’s by breaking the chain reaction of free radicals with brain cells.
Sources of Antioxidants
To protect our body from free radicals, we already have a well-developed system of enzymes that break down the free radicals by reacting with them. These antioxidants are called Endogenous Antioxidants. But only these antioxidants aren’t sufficient to give you a better protective layer against free radicals, so we need to get them from outside & many different antioxidants are available in our daily diet.
Some of these antioxidants can be sourced from our daily meals are:
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is an antioxidant that our body can’t produce by itself, so we need to get it through our diet. This vitamin works as a reducing agent by neutralising the chain reaction created by free radicals. Other than this, Vitamin C can also work as a catalyst for other enzymes to reduce the effect of free radicals.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is a micronutrient with fat-soluble & antioxidant properties. This vitamin protects the outer membrane of a cell by reacting with the free radicals thus breaking the chain reaction of mutation & transformation of the cell.
Some other artificial antioxidants are also available in the market but due to their health-related concerns, they are now rarely used by the food industry. Some of them are:
Vitamin E 319
This Artificial Antioxidant is used in the production of vegetable oils & animal fats. This chemical compound is effective in preventing the oxidation process in vegetable oil while cooking it can prevent the growth of free radicals.
Vitamin E 310
Another Artificial Antioxidant that is widely used in the preparation of vegetable oils. It is sensitive to heat but then also used to give aroma to oils & neutralise the effects of free radicals.
Antioxidants in foods
As we noted above, we have to get the maximum quantity of antioxidants required by our body through food & certain foods carry specific natural antioxidants.
Following is the list of those natural antioxidants & their best source of food:
Vitamin C
Fruits & vegetables, especially sour ones like oranges, berries, grapes & lemons. Peppers, Strawberries, Potatoes, Broccoli.
Vitamin E
Green & leafy vegetables, nuts & seeds. Edible oils as Soya, Corn, Sunflower and Olive oil, Wheatgerm that is found cereals and cereal products.
Vitamin A
Vegetables, dairy products, eggs & fish. Milk and Yoghurt, Cheese, Spinach, Fortified low-fat spreads, Liver and Liver products.
Beta-Carotene
Yellow, red and green (leafy) Vegetables, such as Spinach, Carrots, Sweet Potatoes and Red Peppers. Yellow fruit, such as Mango, Papaya and Apricots.
Is Having Antioxidant Supplements Good?
In the last couple of years, a new debate has emerged that taking antioxidant supplements is good or can have side effects on your body.
First of all, supplements of most antioxidants are available in the market & doctors or health experts recommend them, especially for anti-ageing as per your body’s need. However, some recent studies have found that excessive intake of these supplements can be an invitation for more serious health problems.
Some researchers have claimed that taking antioxidants over the limit can increase the risk of certain cancers & even the risk of death but there is no concrete study on this topic.
But then also it has been widely recommended that if you need to fulfill your antioxidant needs then adding fruits & vegetables rich in antioxidants is the best way to do it. The reason is clear that these foods carry antioxidants in balanced quantities.
Conclusion
So, at the end of his search. Aashu came to know that Antioxidants are micronutrients that can not only repair his immune system but protect him from free radicals. These free radicals can damage the cell structure & can cause chronic diseases such as cancers & heart diseases by mutating or transforming the cells.
Aashu is now supportive of his mother to have antioxidant rich foods on his plate so that he can have a potent immunity against diseases. Although many of these fruits and vegetables are not of his liking but to get antioxidant benefits, he can go for them as well.
