User's Guide to Antioxidant Supplements
By Jack Challem and Melissa Block
()
About this ebook
Jack Challem
Jack is one of America's most trusted nutrition and health writers • He's widely known as The Nutrition Reporter™ • Jack is also a personal nutrition coach and available for in-person and telephone coaching • He’s a member of the American Society for Nutrition • Click on the book links to read free excerpts from Jack's bestselling books • Order Jack's books via easy links to amazon.com • Read sample issues of his newsletter, The Nutrition Reporter™ • Whether you're nearby or far away, find out how Jack's writing and personal nutrition coaching can help you • And discover much more right here that can change your life for the better...
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User's Guide to Antioxidant Supplements - Jack Challem
INTRODUCTION
If you could take a pill each day that would most likely lengthen your life span while significantly reducing your chances of ending up with occlusive heart disease, heart failure, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, complications from diabetes, eye diseases causing blindness, rheumatoid arthritis, TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorder, skin diseases, and muscle soreness following exercise, would you take it?
There’s no drug that will do all that, you might be thinking. That’s impossible! If there were, every doctor would have every patient on it. True. No drug can do this. But bear with us. Would you take such a pill if it existed?
What’s the catch? you may wonder. Will there be scary side effects? No. Is it outrageously expensive? No: at most, a few dollars a day; at least, a few pennies a day. Is it something that has been barely researched—something that no one really knows the risks and benefits of? No, this substance has been rigorously studied since the middle of the twentieth century. Will I have to trade my first-born child? Okay, now you’re being silly. Let’s have an answer: Would you take the substance or not?
Well, yes, of course!
So would we. What is this miraculous pill to which we are referring? It—or, more accurately, they—are the subject of this book, and of extensive research in laboratories and medical centers all over the world. We are talking about antioxidants.
It all goes back to a research chemist named Denham Harman, who in November 1954 had a eureka!
moment. Dr. Harman thought he had figured out what drives the aging process.
In December of 1945, his wife had showed him an article about the work of Russian researchers who were attempting to extend the human life span, and it had intrigued him. Finally, sitting at his desk nine years later, it came to him: the cause of aging is oxidation.
His past work for the Shell Oil Company had involved free-radical chemistry, but at that time, no one had an inkling that there would ever be a connection drawn between free radicals and aging. No scientist had ever detected free-radical activity in human cells.
Once Dr. Harman had his eureka
moment, he set about trying to find free radicals in living systems. This did not prove to be an easy task, but by the 1960s—with the help of many other scientists who came to see the brilliance of what he was doing—studies had established that free radicals were indeed a product of cellular metabolism (more on this later) and that supplementation with antioxidant substances reliably increased the life expectancy of lab animals.
At this writing, Dr. Harman is still hard at work. He is in his late eighties, yet he continues to rise at 4:30 each morning to go to his office at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, where he is professor emeritus. He sits at his desk for eight to nine hours a day, poring over scientific research and working on new research strategies that will—he hopes—permanently move antioxidant supplementation into the mainstream of modern life.
Dr. Harman’s lonely early research sowed the seeds for the current explosion of antioxidant research. There are more than 111,000 scientific studies, published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, that concern antioxidants and their activity in animal and human cells. No theory about chronic or age-related disease can last long without considering the role free radicals play in their onset and progression.
In these pages, you will learn exactly what a free radical is, and why it is harmful. You’ll see the connection between free radicals and diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. And you’ll find out that a lot of the agents that help us resist the onslaught of free radicals—the antioxidants—may well be our best protection against these diseases.
In Chapter 1, we’ll go into greater detail about the science of free radicals and antioxidants—just enough to give you a complete understanding of the chapters that follow. Have a pencil handy when you get to Chapter 2 because we’re going to establish just how much you need supplemental antioxidants with a not-too-scientific quiz. Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 will get to the nitty-gritty, describing the research that has demonstrated the benefits of antioxidant vitamins and minerals; of endogenous (made in the body) antioxidants that work even greater magic when taken as supplements; and of antioxidants found in herbs and other plants, edible and not. Finally, in the Conclusion, we’ll help you see how to apply all the science to your life and your health.
Some of these nutrients will be familiar to you; some, you may already be using. Others will be totally new. We won’t mention anything in these pages that has not been thoroughly researched. Once you’ve finished reading this book, we’re sure that you will be convinced that antioxidant nutrients are an indispensable part of a healthy lifestyle—and that they can be used to prevent, and to help the body heal from, some of the most common health problems that threaten us from middle age onward.
CHAPTER 1
FREE RADICALS AND ANTIOXIDANTS DEMYSTIFIED
You’ve probably heard a lot of talk about free radicals and antioxidants. You may have made some attempt to figure out just what exactly they are, and you may even have tried to learn which antioxidants you should take to protect and promote good health. This book will take you to the next level: it will apprise you of what is currently understood about antioxidants, and it will help you decide which ones you ought to be taking.
Antioxidants are not drugs, although some drugs can have an antioxidant effect in the body. And although many researchers are currently transforming some natural antioxidants into drugs, the best antioxidants come directly from nature. Some come from foods; some come from plants that are not eaten as food; still others are made within the living cells of the body, and have been isolated and studied as nutritional supplements.
Simply put, antioxidants neutralize free radicals. Free radicals are atoms or atomic groups that contain unpaired electrons.
A Closer Look At Free Radicals
Think back to your high-school chemistry class. Remember that atoms are the stuff from which molecules are made; they are the smallest component of matter. See if you can visualize that plastic model your teacher pulled out to illustrate her description of an atom. There’s the nucleus, represented as a central sphere, half positively charged protons and half neutrally charged neutrons.