Welcome to
Feel Good with Antioxidants

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This website intends to provide you with information on what antioxidants are and how it can benefit your overall health and well being. Don't take the recommendations that may be cited here without consulting a medical or health care professional.

Understanding antioxidants and free radicals is a very interesting subject since it involves the quality of our general health in this 'industrialized' century where pollution, food sources, eating habits, lifestyle and job demands has come to work against our overall health.

The need for taking antioxidant supplements has come to be necessary.

If you are considering taking antioxidant supplements, then this website will be of value to you. Knowing what you are taking greatly enhances its beneficial effects,

Our body responds better if our mind knows what we are taking.

It is the aim of this website to give you a better understanding and awareness of antioxidants as an important factor in achieving a healthy body. We only have this one life to live, a healthy body can let us achieve more in whatever our activities are either physically or mentally.

We are constantly exposed to free radicals

Exposure to sunlight and radiation, smoking, inhaling second hand smoke, eating fruits and vegetables with traces of herbicides, eating fatty foods, pollution, drinking tap water containing metals are just some external generators of free radicals.

Aside from that our bodies also generate free radicals.

• Manufacturing of energy(ATP) in a cell has a by product of free radicals
• Our immune system generates free radicals to combat harmful intruders in our body.
• Rigorous physical activities can also generate free radicals.

Our bodies are subject to free radical chain reactions both externally and internally but nature has equipped us with it's own antioxidants(free radical defenses). Some of these are:

• Superoxide Dismutase(SOD)
• Glutathione
• Melanin
• Melatonin which is a hormone
• CoQ10

Without these internal antioxidants, we may not last a month. Experiments have shown that when SOD was genetically inactivated in mice, it dies less than a month after birth. It also suffered from multiple pathologies like liver cancer and cataracts to name a few.

Some of our internal antioxidants decreases in production as we get older like glutatione and CoQ10. Glutathione can be supplemented by an acetylated form of a certain amino acid(N-Acetyl Cysteine) which is more effective in raising the levels of glutathione as well as providing other benefits for our body. Selenium too can raise glutathione levels.

But our internal antioxidants may not be enough if we

• Are constantly exposed to radiation like sunlight, medical x-rays, etc.
• Exercise irregularly.
• Are constantly exposed to pollution, exhaust fumes from automobiles, toxic chemicals.
• Smoke a lot.
• Are exposed to second hand smoke from smokers.
• Eat fruits and vegetables treated with herbicides.
• Drinking tap water which contains heavy metals.
• Get stressed constantly.

Most external antioxidants can be found mostly in the food we eat especially fruits and vegetables. Supplements are also very convenient and can be less expensive than buying foods rich in antioxidants. However, fruits and vegetables contain more than just antioxidants, they also contain many nutrients essential for overall health.

The following are good antioxidants:

• Vitamin C
• Vitamin A
• Vitamin E
• Bioflavonoids
  • Lycopene
  • Resveratrol
  • Proanthocyanidins
  • Quercetin
  • Cathechin
• Selenium
• N-Acetyl Cysteine

Degenerative diseases

Alzheimer's disease, parkinson's disease, heart disease and cancer are some of the extreme results of damage that free radicals may cause. I'm sure no one wants to acquire those diseases.

Free radicals can attack the DNA in our cells. If the damage gets too much before antioxidants can neutralize the free radicals, it might become 'unrepairable'. The cell could:

• go into apoptosis(programmed cell death)
• mutate

:If the cells mutate, unnatural cell growth can occur. The cells can multiply unnaturally which can be an onset of a tumor.

Help your body neutralize free radicals

If you live in an urban area where exposure to industrial pollutions, automobile exhaust fumes, stressful activities and eating habits are a common thing, our body may not be able to keep up with our antioxidant requirements.

It's best to supplement our internal antioxidants like glutatione and CoQ10. N-Acetyl Cysteine is a good supplement to increase the production of glutatathione. These antioxidants are naturally designed to neutralize free radicals in our body. They are programmed naturally to do the scavenging of harmful free radicals. Boosting these antioxidants is the best way to gain the antioxidant requirements of our body.

Vitamin C, which our bodies don't produce, must be supplemented especially when you smoke cigarettes. Even if you are not a smoker, you still are subject to oxidative damage from smokers near you. Vitamin C is not only a potent antioxidant, it also boosts your immune system.