What Are Antioxidants & The Benefits Of Antioxidant Fruits & Supplements?
I am sure you have heard the word “antioxidants” many times. You probably know from the news and articles that you have read that fruits and vegetables have high levels of antioxidants but trying to understand what antioxidants actually are can be very confusing. Well, here it is going to be explained quite simply.
In order to explain what antioxidants are, you need to understand that your body is made of trillions of different cells. Each organ in your body (for example, the heart, the brain, the liver, etc.) is made up of many different cells.
As we get older, cells in our bodies can get damaged by many different things. For instance, pollution can damage our cells… poor diets can damage our cells… poor water can damage our cells… smoking (as well as second hand smoke can damage our cells.), etc. Depending on the extent of the damage, different organs (remember, each organ is made up of many cells) can get damaged. Once they get damaged too much, it leads to problems such as heart disease, liver problems, cancer, alzheimers, etc.
Antioxidants help repair damaged cells in our bodies and antioxidants also help prevent our healthy cells from getting damaged. Hopefully, if we take enough antioxidants when we are younger, we can prevent ourselves from getting problems such as heart disease, liver problems and cancer.
So it is definitely good to try to prevent your cells from getting damaged. You can start this at any age.
Antioxidants can be found in our foods as well as in different supplements.
The fruits with the most antioxidants in them are any kind of berries… blueberries, strawberries, etc. Dark green vegetables also contain a lot of antioxidants such as spinach and kale.
Some good supplements that contain high levels of antioxidants are green tea extract, grape seed extract and turmeric curcumin.
