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 Harmful
free radicals are toxic molecules of oxygen that damage
every area of our bodies. One free radical can initiate tens
of thousands of chain reactions that cause tremendous harm
(destroy cell membranes, disrupt crucial processes in the
body, reprogram DNA, form mutant cells, and more). Free
radicals are a major contributing factor to nearly all
situations of non-ideal health. The best strategy to
minimize their negative effects on us is a two fold
approach. Avoid exposing yourself to things that create free
radicals and support your body in apprehending
them
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Most
scientists agree that free radical damage is a
major cause of aging and all degenerative
conditions.
The challenge
that free radicals pose is great, and protecting
yourself from their ravages is absolutely essential
for good health!
The best
strategy to deal with the harmful effects of free
radicals is to limit exposure and increase your
ability to apprehend them by boosting your
antioxidant supplies.
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Antioxidants
convert toxic free radicals into harmless elements.
Therefore, having high levels of bio-compatible antioxidants
in your system causes fewer detoxification "side-effects"
than those produced when the body has to eliminate, rather
than neutralize, toxins, as in water fasting and other forms
of bodily cleansing and detoxification that don't
incorporate bio-compatible antioxidants.
Free
Radicals Are Implicated
In Nearly All Health Challenges
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Free Radicals are
produced in response to many different everyday
things, such as:
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Foods subjected to high heat (especially animal
products (chickens and other birds, cows, pigs,
fishes, lambs, eggs, dairy products, animal fats
and proteins, and metabolic waste products
contained in animal tissues and organs) and refined
foods such as white sugar, white flours,
hydrogenated oils, etc.)
Environmental pollution (from air, water, household
chemicals, asbestos, pesticide residues, &
other man-made pollutants including the out-gassing
of plastic and other synthetics)
Preservatives, Colorings, and other food
additives
Smoking and passive smoke
Exposure to excess heat or cold
Metabolism
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Medical
Treatment including medications
Alcohol
Bacteria
Parasites
Chemotherapy & Radiation
Prescription & Over The Counter Drugs
Exercise
Lack of Truly Clean & Fresh Air
Radiation (including electromagnetic radiation from
anything electric such as outside power lines;
wires in your home/work, TVs, computer monitors,
etc.
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Heart Disease & Strokes
Computers/Monitors/TVs
Use of Ovens
(microwaves are the worst!)
Nutrient deficiencies (major & minor) which can
still occur even on the best of diets (even fresh,
raw foods contain only as many nutrients as the
soil in which they were grown)
Sunburn
Stress (any)
Judgment or any other non-positive mental state
Synthetic materials such as Polyester, Acetate,
Satin, Plastics, etc.
Tap Water, etc.
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What happens if you don't
have an abundant supply of antioxidants?
"Aging",
along with all of the degenerative conditions that go
hand-in-hand with it, greatly accelerates.
The disease Progeria demonstrates this.
It is a rare disease that affects children: They have an
inability to produce metabolic antioxidant enzymes, and
therefore, go through all of the uncomfortable conditions of
"aging" at an extremely accelerated rate. At 10 years old,
they look, feel and are biologically very old and in poor
health. If they were producing a normal amount of
antioxidants, this would not happen.
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Harmful
free radicals are toxic molecules of oxygen that
damage every area of our bodies. One free radical
can initiate tens of thousands of chain reactions
that cause tremendous harm (destroy cell membranes,
disrupt crucial processes in the body, reprogram
DNA, form mutant cells, and more).
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In fact, antioxidants are the only way to protect yourself from free radicals once they are formed! Healthy foods and bio-compatible supplements contain antioxidant nutrients, pigments and other substances designed for our use, protection and health; and the body naturally produces metabolic antioxidant enzymes (which destroy, and prevent the formation of, free radicals) to keep free radicals in check, but...
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HEALTHY CELL . . . . . .FREE
RADICAL DAMAGE
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Due
to a highly compromised environment, non-ideal
food, etc., people have far more free radicals and
far less metabolic antioxidant enzymes (decreasing
with age, nutrient deficiency and cooked food
consumption) than are needed for optimum health.
Our natural free radical defense systems have been
severely weakened, drained, and overrun. If you
think you don't need extra protection (even on the
best diet), think again!
Consuming food cooked at normal temperatures creates significant amounts free radicals and also depletes our metabolic antioxidant enzymes (taking plant enzymes with cooked foods will help significantly). Cooked whole foods from the plant kingdom, however, still do contain significant amounts of usable, naturally occurring antioxidants (including phytochemicals/phytonutrients).
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HEALTHY CELL . . ..
.FREE RADICAL DAMAGE
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Antioxidants
apprehend and eliminate free radicals, and are
Mother Nature's natural way of protecting all life
from them!
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Foods that
contribute to increased free radicals and free
radical production versus foods that help
eliminate free radicals and free radical
production
One source of damaging free radicals is food. All foods create some degree of free radical damage simply by requiring digestion and/or assimilation (metabolism inherently creates free radicals). Some foods create very few free radicals in their digestion/assimilation yet contribute tremendous amounts of antioxidants to the body. This group includes primarily fresh, raw fruits and vegetables) including juices. Properly prepared superfoods such as Spirulina, cereal grasses (barely, wheat, kamut, etc.), and chlorella also fit into this group as do certain herbs (see below). These foods have so many free radical eliminating antioxidants that the relatively small amount of free radicals created are apprehended, with antioxidants to spare to deal with other free radicals.
These
foods usually support the elimination of free radicals
indirectly as well. For example: Most people's red blood
cells are clumped together due to poor lifestyle choices.
This does not allow proper delivery of oxygen, vitamins,
minerals and other cellular nutrients to body cells, and
also severely inhibits the excretion of cellular waste and
elimination of it from the body. This condition, called
rouleau, wreaks absolute havoc on one's health and greatly
contributes to free radical production and suppressed
elimination of them at the same time. The previously
mentioned foods usually unclump the red blood cells so they
are free flowing, nutrients and oxygen can get to the cells
and toxins can be carried away. This is a very healthy
scenario.
Consuming food cooked at normal temperatures creates significant amounts of free radicals and also depletes our metabolic antioxidant enzymes (taking plant enzymes with cooked foods will help). You can dramatically increase your ability to apprehend free radicals by consuming raw, uncooked foods, and taking digestive enzymes (from plant sources) with any food that has been cooked or heated. Cooked whole foods from the plant kingdom, however, still do contain significant amounts of usable, naturally occurring antioxidant nutrients such as vitamins, minerals and thousands of phytonutrients. As a rule, longer and hotter cooking temperatures result in more free radicals. However, steaming may not create any free radicals, and all cooked foods are NOT bad for you. I encourage everyone to eat largely raw foods from the plant kingdom, yet I do find whole food, Vegan cooked foods to enhance health for
some (versus eating 100% raw).
On
the contrary, refined foods and cooked animal products
(flesh of any creature, dairy and eggs) create large amounts
of free radicals and provide few antioxidants to apprehend
the free radicals they create. They present a much greater
challenge than cooked whole plant foods such as fruits,
grains, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds. Furthermore,
refined foods and animal products have significantly less
antioxidant nutrients, if any, making them (nutritionally)
quite undesirable. They also clump up the red blood cells
(called rouleau - see above). This contributes to poor
circulation, high blood pressure, and toxicity. This is not
a healthy scenario.
What
do I mean by "refined foods"? I am defining refined
foods as those that have undergone nutritionally detrimental
processing. Examples are hydrogenated and partially
hydrogenated oils including shortenings, most other heated
oils (alone and in products) sugar (sucrose, dextrose, corn
syrup, high fructose corn syrup), white flours including the
"enriched" varieties, etc. These foods contain and create
large amounts of free radicals while offering precious
little ability to deal with them.
On
the contrary, relatively few free radicals are created
during metabolism of raw, uncooked plant foods (metabolism
creates free radicals inherently) but they provide far more
antioxidant nutrients, (including
phytochemicals/phytonutrients) that more than offset the
small amount of free radical production.
Cholesterol, Heart
Diseases & Free Radicals
Cholesterol
is not the only factor in heart disease. Cholesterol only
comes from animal foods. Be warned that hydrogenated plant
oils (nearly all margarines, all shortening, and foods that
contain them) form cholesterol when in the body. Read
ingredient lists on products so you can avoid these health
destroying oils and other harmful ingredients. Free radicals
are linked to heart disease and strokes. It is is thought
that low density lipoproteins (LDL or "bad" cholesterol
molecules) are oxidized, and this causes them to stick to
the blood vessel walls, resulting in less blood flow and
higher blood pressure due to blood vessel blockage from the
cholesterol. Free radical damage to the blood vessel walls
can also contribute to blood vessel blockage. Animal
products contribute both free radicals and cholesterol to
the body, a deadly combination - literally! Animal products
with the fat removed do not contribute cholesterol, but have
higher concentrations of uric acid forming proteins which
contribute to osteoporosis, gout, acid body chemistry,
sickness, and aging in general.
Freshness
Matters
As
foods age, they contain more free radicals than when they
were fresh. The fresher a food is the better. For example: A
whole grain, fat free, Vegan muffin that was made today
would contribute less free radicals to your body than one
that had been packaged up for several days. However, you
would be far better off eating the healthy muffin that had
been packaged for several days versus a fresh muffin with
white flour, white sugar, eggs, dairy and oil. Drying things
like herbs and foods and storing them in light proof, oxygen
proof containers, or freezing them, will halt free radical
production.
For minimizing the extremely harmful effects of free radicals (and for other health reasons), it is far healthier to eat whole Vegan foods than to eat animal products, and healthiest yet to eat whole, uncooked, raw/live Vegan foods. Having a raw salad at every meal (or making it your meal) and consuming freshly made live juices are excellent ways to lessen your body's free radical load and dramatically positively impact your health!
Should
you supplement your diet
with antioxidant supplements?
YES, and NO!
Consuming
isolated and/or synthetic vitamins and minerals in the form
of supplements is a popular way of getting antioxidants into
your system and can assist to a degree. But, when in
isolation, these nutrients are not generally not very
absorbable or effective at all, and actually have toxicities
(some quite severe)!
10,000 i.u. of
preformed Vitamin A (not beta-carotene) per day can cause
birth defects, for example! Isolated
and/or synthetic water soluble vitamins (B complex and C)
are largely excreted in the urine after doing harm on their
way out. Fat soluble isolated/synthetic vitamins are
significantly more toxic, and isolated/synthetic minerals
can settle out in the tissues without being utilized,
causing similar toxicities and serious problems
(isolated/synthetic iron found in supplements
contributes to heart disease in adults and is a cause of
fatal poisoning in children under 6, for example). Iron in
isolation (the form in all products to which iron has ben
added) is the opposite of an antioxidant, it is an oxidant.
Iron is actually less absorbable from plant sources than it
is from supplement and animal flesh. And for good reason!
Excess iron is highly toxic. It contributes to heart disease
in addition to the negatives above. There is no known
toxicity of iron that naturally occurs in the vegetable
kingdom. Vegetable iron can be selectively absorbed by the
body.
Isolated antioxidants can be beneficial sometimes, especially if whole foods or their concentrates are not avaialble. . However, the body's immune system uses free radicals to destroy foreign bacteria. Isolated or synthetic antioxidants (including preservatives) may weaken the body's ability to do so. Isolated or synthetic antioxidants can also interfere with the body's use of oxygen, and lack of oxygen to our body tissues has serious negative health consequences! Antioxidants in whole foods (in addition to being much more effective), do not interfere with the body's ability to use free radicals constructively.
Whole
food sources of true nutrients from the vegetable kingdom do
not have any known toxicities! For example: You could get
the equivalent of 50,000 i.u of Vitamin A (in the form of
beta-carotene) from a whole vegetable food (along with about
599 other synergistic carotenoids) and never have any
toxicity! That's 5 times the amount of Vitamin A that would,
and does, have toxicity when it is in isolation. Synthetic
beta-carotene has not shown much toxicity, but it has been
shown to have no beneficial effects in many studies.
Nutrients that are in raw, whole foods are vastly more
effective than isolated/synthetic nutrients and also non
toxic! Whole food sources of nutrients are the best sources!
The best way to get antioxidants (and a full spectrum of other nutrients) into your system is through whole, raw/uncooked plants (fruits, vegetables, sprouts, and their freshly made juices) and boost that with non toxic whole food based antioxidant supplements including superfoods (superfoods are foods). Some of the best antioxidants and superfoods include algaes (Spirulina, Chlorella), Cereal Grasses (Barley, Wheat, Kamut, Oat), fresh/raw juices and other food concentrates, the superfood blend Vitamineral™ Green (which contains all of the previous plus more), CoQ10, Ginkgo Biloba, Pycnogenols (grape seed, grape skin, pine bark), Bilberry, Green Tea, Tocotrienols, Rosemary, Milk Thistle Herb (Silymarim), and other naturally occurring plant phytonutrients/phytochemicals, etc. At the same time limit your exposure to all things that create free radicals in the first place! Click Here
for the partial list harmful of free radical initiators
(from above).
© Copyright 1997, 1998 - Jameth
Sheridan, N.D.
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