Free Radicals & Antioxidants

It is estimated that every cell in your body suffers in the neighborhood of 10,000 free radical “hits” per day, much of this damage being done to the genetic material in the cell. This unfortunately worsens as we age. Depending on the amount of antioxidants available and the level of exposure to chemicals, insufficient diet, immune suppression, etc., there can be some thousands and thousands of free-radical events taking place in one’s body at any given moment. Antioxidants are vital compounds that help counteract the effects of free radicals on cells and repair cellular damage. They protect cells by sacrificing electrons to prevent free radicals from stealing electrons from healthy cells.

ORAC: Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity

ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity) testing is now being utilized extensively in the field of antioxidants and oxidative stress. It provides a means to measure how many oxygen radicals a specific food can absorb. Foods that score high in this type of antioxidant analysis may protect cells and their components from oxidative damage, suggest the latest studies of animals and human blood at the ARS Human Nutrition Research Center. (ARS is the chief scientific agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.). In these studies, eating plenty of high-ORAC foods:

• Raised the antioxidant power of human blood 10 to 25 percent
• Prevented some loss of long-term memory and learning ability in middle-aged rats
• Maintained the ability of brain cells in middle-aged rats to respond to a chemical stimulus-a function that normally decreases with age
• Protected rats' tiny blood vessels--capillaries--against oxygen damage

By the year 2050, nearly one-third of the U.S. population is expected to be over age 65. If further research supports these early findings, millions of aging people may be able to guard against many of the worst and most common diseases, simply by adding high-ORAC foods and antioxidant supplement to their diets!