| Prevention and Anti-Aging Tips:
How Free Radicals Affect Your Health and Aging
Antioxidants
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Management | Diabetes
What causes chronic (degenerative) diseases
and aging?
There are two groups of factors that can affect
your inclination towards chronic (degenerative) disease and
the pace at which you age:
1. Factors
beyond your control include your genes (heredity),
age, gender, and ethnicity.
2. Factors
you can control to some extent include your lifestyle
(nutrition, physical activity, etc.), your immediate environment
(pets, home, vehicle, etc., and the products you use to maintain
them), and the frequency and duration of your exposure to
the elements and environmental pollutants.
All of the factors over which you have some
control involve your exposure to free radicals.
You cannot totally eliminate them from your life, but you
may be able to reduce their negative effect on your health
and aging with antioxidants.
What are free radicals and where do they come
from?
Free radicals are a byproduct of metabolism
and other biochemical and biophysical processes that occur
in your body. Your body creates free radicals every time you
move, eat, breathe, or do anything else. In normal concentrations,
they are beneficial to your health as they kill harmful bacteria
inside your body’s cells.
However, free radicals are also formed by pollution,
radiation (including that from the sun), fuel emissions, tobacco
smoke, artificial fertilizers and pesticides, and other toxins.
Those radicals are absorbed by your body through the skin,
inhalation, or ingestion.
Free radicals are highly reactive molecules
that had lost an electron and had thus become unstable. They
try to get that missing electron back by attacking other molecules
in your body and stealing electrons from them, thus turning
them into … you guessed it … more free radicals!
If this process isn’t stopped early on,
it results in a chain reaction, where lots of extra free radicals
form. They oxidize healthy cells
in your body, similar to rust forming on metals, or butter
and other fats becoming rancid.
A healthy body is able to defend itself against
possible negative effects of free radicals, as long as they
don’t get out of control. When they do, they damage
so many of your body’s healthy cells that it can no
longer defend itself effectively and succumbs to aging and
disease.
How do free radicals cause aging and chronic
diseases?
By weakening your immune system, attacking your
body’s healthy cells, and interfering with your body’s
functions, free radicals contribute to aging
and tens of degenerative diseases,
including cancers, cardio- and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes,
inflammatory/autoimmune and mental/neural diseases.
Aging
While most cells in your body are constantly
dying and rebuilding themselves, there are also certain cells
and molecules that stay pretty much constant throughout your
life. The latter include components of:
• DNA;
• blood vessel walls;
• mucus and fluid around the joints;
• lipids in cell membranes;
• collagen and elastin; and
• proteins and lipids that form age
pigment.
In a healthy body, cells that die and rebuild
themselves suffer less free radical damage than the cells
and molecules listed above. The damage is accumulative, which
means that the longer you live, the more negative effect of
oxidation you may experience in the areas that don’t
undergo the constant rebuilding.
This is why, with age, you may develop cancer,
atherosclerosis, arthritis, or other degenerative diseases,
your skin may sag and wrinkle, and age spots may appear on
it.
If you take good care of your health throughout
your life, you may be able to delay the process of aging and
avoid many illnesses. If you abuse your body while you are
young or middle-aged, you may age prematurely and increase
your chances for developing a number of chronic diseases.
Cancers
There are approximately 100 types of cancer,
but they all develop in pretty much the same way: A group
of cells begins uncontrolled growth, invading and destroying
surrounding tissue, and then often metastasizing
(invading other tissues and organs).
Some people inherit cancer from their parents,
their DNA is “programmed” to develop cancer. Others
acquire it as a result of frequent or excessive exposure to
carcinogens, such as tobacco smoke, radiation, and certain
chemicals. Carcinogens contribute to forming free radicals.
Each time a free radical attacks another molecule,
the cell where that molecule belongs is affected. When the
cell’s nucleus is attacked, its DNA undergoes mutation
and the cell becomes cancerous.
We all have some cancerous
cells in our bodies. If their number and size get out of hand,
we get cancer. While some types of cancer can be reversed
if detected early enough, this disease is responsible for
about 13% of all deaths worldwide.
Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Diseases
Free radicals directly contribute to atherosclerosis,
which may lead to a heart attack or a stroke (among other
conditions).
Atherosclerosis is caused by plaque accumulating
inside your arteries. It’s composed of lipids (LDL cholesterol
and triglycerides), white blood cells, calcium, and connective
tissue.
Plaque is formed when free radicals oxidize
LDL cholesterol as it travels through your arteries, and white
blood cells are unable to absorb the oxidized LDL. Overtime,
the mass of LDL and white blood cells accumulated in your
arteries calcifies and hardens, narrowing the arteries, and
thus making it more difficult for your blood to reach your
heart, brain, and other muscles and organs.
At any time, the plaque may rupture, forming
a thrombus (blood clot) that may
stop the flow of blood to the organ the artery feeds:
• If a blood clot forms in a coronary
artery, the affected organ is your heart and you get
a heart attack.
• If a blood clot forms in a cerebral
artery, the affected organ is your brain and you get
a stroke.
Diabetes
When you consume carbohydrates, your digestive
enzymes break them down into glucose and energy. That energy
is either used immediately by your muscles and other tissues
and organs, or stored in your fat tissue for future use.
As a byproduct of this process, free radicals are formed.
As a response to the presence of glucose in
your blood, your pancreas produces insulin. Insulin helps
transport the glucose and its energy to your muscles, organs
and other tissues for immediate use or for storage. The process
of insulin production creates more free radicals.
With normal consumption of healthy carbohydrates,
the free radicals can be neutralized by special enzymes in
your body. However, when you overconsume carbohydrates, especially
the “bad” ones, too much glucose needs to be processed
and transported, and consequently, too many free radicals
are formed. The free radical fighting enzymes become “overworked”
and unable to do their job efficiently.
Among the many cells that can be damaged by
free radicals are the beta cells in your pancreas. When those
cells are destroyed, your pancreas loses its ability to produce
insulin and you develop type 1 diabetes.
In type 2 diabetes, you become insulin resistant,
which makes your beta cells work overtime, creating even more
free radicals.
While it is being disputed whether free radicals
cause type 2 diabetes itself, they can contribute to many
of the complications associated with both type 1 and type
2 diabetes, such as impaired immune and nervous systems, poor
circulation, damage to your eyes and kidneys. These can lead
to susceptibility to infections, limb numbness, slow wound
healing (often resulting in gangrene and amputation), blindness,
kidney failure, and even death.
Arthritis, Asthma and Other Inflammatory or
Autoimmune Diseases
As free radicals attack your body’s cells,
your immune system may respond by sending out cytokines
to the affected area to fight off the invasion. However, the
pro-inflammatory action of cytokines produces even more free
radicals, and the vicious cycle begins. As a result, the affected
area becomes inflamed.
• If the inflammation takes place in
your joints, you may develop arthritis.
• If the inflammation affects your
respiratory system, you may develop asthma or certain allergies.
Inflammation can occur in any portion of your
body, leading to a number of inflammatory or autoimmune diseases,
for example, acne, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis,
and any disease that ends in -itis.
Mental and Other Neural Illnesses
Mental illnesses are behavioral and cognitive
disorders, including dementia (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease),
autism, depression, manias, phobias, ADHD, schizophrenia,
the list goes on and on. Other neural diseases include migraines,
epilepsy, speech and movement disorders (e.g., Parkinson’s
disease and cerebral palsy), and many others.
Many different factors can lead to neural disease.
Some are biophysical, psychological, or genetic, others are
social or environmental. Free radicals are involved in some
of the biophysical processes that occur in your brain and
can contribute to mental and other neural disorders.
Free radicals create chemical reactions that
can damage your brain cells. If free radicals get out of control,
cells are damaged faster than they can be repaired. Many years
of this oxidative damage can impair the ability of brain neurons
to transmit signals between your brain and other parts of
your body. This may lead to any of the aforementioned conditions.
How can free radicals be counteracted?
See how
antioxidants can help slow down, stop, or reverse
the damage caused by excessive free radical activity.
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Antioxidants
| Free Radicals | Laughter
| Kindness
| Stress
Management | Diabetes
|
Prevention and Anti-Aging Tips