What Are Antioxidants and Why Are They Important To Our Bodies?
Every day, the body is exposed to free radicals, either from the environment or from the food and drinks you consume. Fortunately, the body has a special defense mechanism that counteracts the bad effects of free radicals, namely antioxidants.
Antioxidants and their relation to free radicals
Have you heard of free radicals? The components that are said to cause various kinds of diseases are around you everyday.
Free radicals are byproducts of processing food into energy. In addition, you can also get free radicals from food, air, and even from your body’s reaction to sunlight.
Well, for that reason our bodies need antioxidants to combat the negative effects that can come from free radicals.
There are two types, namely endogenous which is produced by the body, and exogenous which is obtained from outside the body, especially from food.
Although it can produce its own antioxidants, the body tends to rely more on antioxidants that come from outside.
These antioxidants will work by giving electrons to free radical molecules so that they neutralize the bad nature of these free radicals.
How do antioxidants work in the body?
The way antioxidants work is related to how free radicals work. Free radicals in the body are molecules that have free electrons, where electrons should be paired.
These free electrons make free radicals so reactive that they can cause damage to surrounding cells.
Due to the nature of the paired electrons, the free electrons present in these free radical molecules can donate electrons or accept electrons from the molecules of healthy body cells.
Healthy body cell molecules will then behave the same as free radicals, giving rise to many other free radicals.
The reactive free radicals then affect the membrane to the cell nucleus and damage the components inside a cell, triggering the cell to destroy itself.
Although they can attack all types of cells, free radicals mainly attack fat cells, nucleic acid cells, and proteins.
Later, the antioxidant will donate electrons to the unpaired electrons in the free radical molecule.
That way, antioxidants will prevent free electrons from attracting electrons from healthy body cells.
What is special about its work is that after giving electrons, the antioxidant will not turn into free radicals as if other cells gave electrons. So that its properties such as neutralizing the reactive properties of free radical molecules.
What are the sources of intake?
There are many vitamins, antioxidants that you can easily find in your daily food and drink.
Some examples are vitamin C, vitamin E, and carotenoids such as lutein, beta carotene, and lycopene which are found in many vegetables and fruits.
Vitamin E helps protect body cells from damage that can cause cancer, heart disease, and eye disease. Usually, this vitamin works together with vitamin C to prevent various degenerative diseases.
Vitamin E you can find in oil derived from plants, products whole grains, seeds, and nuts.
Apart from vitamin E, vitamin C is perhaps the most widely recognized type of antioxidant.
Helping to protect the body from infection, preventing cell damage, and helping the production of collagen which functions to attach bones to muscles are some of the benefits of vitamin C.
You can find vitamin C in citrus fruits, mangoes, papayas, strawberries, to vegetables such as tomatoes, broccoli, and potatoes.
Apart from being derived from vitamins, antioxidants can also be found in phytonutrients, a component that is only found in vegetables and fruit and plays a role in giving the fruit a distinctive color or aroma.
Phytonutrients from the carotenoid group contain lots of antioxidants. For example, there are beta carotene, lycopene, and lutein, which are abundant in carrots, tomatoes, and dark green vegetables such as broccoli and kale.
Antioxidants and disease prevention
As previously explained, antioxidants are able to ward off free radicals. If left unchecked, free radicals can cause damage to healthy body cells.
Free radicals are suspected to be the cause of various diseases such as cancer, heart disease, reduced vision ability, and Alzheimer’s.
Antioxidants as neutralizing the reactive properties of free radicals can prevent these diseases, but the effect will be greater if consumed in their natural form, not in supplement form.
Several studies have shown that the consumption of supplements has little effect on the prevention of diseases caused by free radicals.
One study published by JAMA Internal Medicine reported that vitamin E supplements and other antioxidants did not show effective results in preventing heart disease or cancer.
Other studies have even shown that beta-carotene supplements can increase the risk of lung cancer in smokers.
Although these studies have their respective limitations, research related to the benefits of eating fruit vegetables rich in antioxidants actually gives positive results to fight the harmful effects of free radicals.
Therefore, try to get it from natural ingredients and do a healthier lifestyle if you want to avoid a disease.
Hello Health Group and Hello Sehat do not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please check our editorial policy page for more detailed information.
