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Health See other Health Articles Title: Antioxidants Will Never End Is there an end to the antioxidant compounds from plants and microorganisms? Even dog food is fortified with blueberries. 7-11 has pomegranate juice and kale; collards and kefir are making recipe comebacks. Can consumers hear when we introduce yet another miracle antioxidant supplement or superfood? The answer is there is no end, and consumers are still testing the waters of vitamin C, so caffeic acid phenethyl ester is indeed falling on deaf ears. The reason for the confusion is that our phytochemical paradigm is wrong. We treat each new phytochemical antioxidant as a newly discovered vitamin, full of promise to heal what ails you. However plants are making phytochemical antioxidants for themselves, not for us—plants need protection from breakage, insects, pathogens, and strong sunlight. But it so happens that flowering plants and mammals co-evolved. Flowering plants provided mammals with calories, linoleic acid, and highly complicated antioxidant protection. Ominvorous/herbivorous mammals evolved to rely on two forms of antioxidant protection: their innate antioxidant enzyme systems and “extra help” from plants that had already done the chemical syntheses. In return we spread flowering plant seeds all over (often complete with fertilizer), making them dominant. Plants and animals create reactive oxygen metabolites (ROM or “free radicals”) as byproducts of metabolism. Limited amounts of reactive oxygen have value in killing pathogens and flushing tissues clear of toxic substances. In chronic inflammatory conditions, inflammation keeps going beyond what’s beneficial. Antioxidants act like chemical sacrificial lambs, preferentially reacting with ROM so that they don’t react with the body’s tissues. Our bodies are designed for and dependent on a steady supply of varied antioxidant phytochemicals. We expect them in our diets and will suffer chronic disease and remorseless fatigue without them. Every plant or fermented food that’s edible has something to offer. Some plants do have higher concentrations of particularly active antioxidant phytochemicals, meaning you could ingest less and still see pronounced benefits. Table 1 gives some winners, but notice the OVERALL winner among ALL plant products I have ever investigated is bee propolis. Bees select a variety plant resins that are strong enough to kill almost any pathogen in the hive. Propolis isn’t tasty, so it should be encapsulated. However, you can make up for a lot of dietary indiscretion by supplementing it, because this exposes you to at least six different plants that you would never encounter in your diet, even if you ate 25 servings of produce daily. The correct way to market antioxidants is that one is never enough, and five per day is just the government minimum. Most of the time no single antioxidant cures a disease, but all of the time a lack of antioxidants will bring on disease. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
#2. To: X-15 (#0)
Heck yeah, proper diet and clean water will keep ya healthy and the doctors office empty.
There are no replies to Comment # 2. End Trace Mode for Comment # 2.
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