Quotes About Free radicals

Making energy creates waste, like exhaust from a car. That's the byproduct of running the engine. Your cells work the same way, but this biological exhaust comes in the form of what are called free radicals, which are chemicals that can damage your cells.

Your body tries to remove free radicals via antioxidants, which try to bind the free radicals up (as if they were in handcuffs) and haul them out of your cells and then out of your body. That's one of the reasons blueberries and exercise are so good for you—they are two very powerful ways to increase your in-cell antioxidants. Regularly drinking black coffee is another.

Earl Stadtman was quoted as saying, "Aging is a disease. The human lifespan simply reflects the level of free radical damage that accumulates in cells. When enough damage accumulates, cells can't survive properly anymore and they just give up.

Combinations of antioxidants like vitamin A, vitamin E, and beta-carotene in pill form were associated with increased risk of death in those who took them.15 Supplements contain only a select few antioxidants, whereas your body relies on hundreds of them, all working synergistically to create a network to help the body dispose of free radicals.

It turns out that sodium intake appears to suppress the activity of a key antioxidant enzyme in the body called superoxide dismutase,49 which has the ability to detoxify a million free radicals per second.50 With the action of this workhorse of an enzyme stifled by sodium, artery-crippling levels of oxidative stress can build up.