What are antioxidants and why do we need them?

Antioxidants are a good thing; they take care of free-radicals, which can be a bad thing. Free-radicals aren't revolting students recently freed from jail, but are substances found in the body that can do damage and have been linked with cell death, ageing, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's and all sorts of other things it is probably best not to think about.

Science bit: free radicals are molecules with an unpaired electron. They cause damage to cells and other structures by aiding oxidisation. Antioxidants neutralise them by 'donating' one of their electrons.

FREE-RADICALS

Free-radicals have been given a pretty bad deal by the press, sometimes quite unfairly. They occur naturally in the body and have an important role to play in fighting off infections and they are thought to be produced in large quantities during vigorous exercise. These exercise induced free-radicals stay in the muscles never reaching tissues and organs where they can do damage. In the muscles they are thought to signal muscles cells to make adaptive changes to exercise; the "training effect"

The body has a number of natural defences against any free-radicals that get out of hand.

Science bit: For the very interested these are enzymes (e.g. superoxide dimutase, glutathione, peroxidase) which have minerals such as manganese, selenium and zinc incorporated in their structures.

In general too much of something is bad for you and it is the case with free-radicals. Exposure to stress, UV light, cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes and other pollution can increase their formation.

ANTIOXIDANTS

Antioxidants are enzymes and nutrients in the blood that 'disarm' free radicals. If you think of the damage that free-radicals do as rusting (the oxidisation of iron) you can see why antioxidants are a good thing. They are found in plants so you will often see, in books and magazine articles, the terms phytonutrients or phytochemicals. Phyto is derived from the Greek for plant. Scientists seem to like Greek for some reason because they also talk about flavanoids and limonoids; oids indicate likeness in Greek. It is pretty obvious why, when he did not understand something, a Shakespearian character said "it's all Greek to me".

Eating food with a range of antioxidants will help ensure that our bodies have all the weapons they need to neutralise harmful free-radicals.

WHAT ARE GOOD SOURCES OF ANTIOXIDANTS

Fortunately nature has been kind to us and colour-coded most fruit and vegetables so that we can easily get a balanced intake of antioxidants without having to know our prodelphinidins from our thearubigins. (These particular antioxidants are found in pomegranates and green tea respectively)

Generally speaking the deeper and more vivid the colour of the fruit or vegetable the higher the antioxidant benefit. Different coloured fruit and vegetables contain different types of antioxidant so try and eat a variety of colours. The Government recommend eating five portions a day, but we would suggest 7 to 9 would be better. Apparently the Government would like to recommend a higher amount, but they are worried that even the five a day target will not be reached so are afraid to raise the target even higher.

So choose from:-

Oranges and orange juice

Carrots

Sweet potatoes

Tomatoes

Red peppers

Strawberries

Blueberries

Blackberries

Broccoli

Cabbage

Brussels sprouts

Green peppers

Information extracted from 'Ed & Phil's Fit Food' www.edandphil.co.uk