When it comes to your health and what you should or shouldn’t do, eat or not eat, let alone what supplements you should take to keep healthy, it’s all very contradictory and confusing. No wonder people get fed up with all the woo-woo talk and commercial claptrap and turn off after a while.
Understandable it may be, but wise it ain’t.
It’s your body and your life. You need to make some sense of it all. From your 20’s on, when you cease growing, your cells are dying faster than they replace themselves and in a sense, it’s all downhill for you from then on. How soon you become old and decrepit, a burden to yourself and others, stripped of a lifetime’s hard-earned wealth by medical care you are obliged to undergo and the astronomic premiums of medical insurance that won’t cover anything chronic, is largely up to you. Not that many of us, I’m afraid, get snuffed out - just like that. So I wouldn’t bank on it, if I were you.
I mean, we’re told that exercise is good for us, right?
Well, yes it is. But then again it isn’t. Otherwise athletes would live to be old and most don’t. We’re told vitamin C is good for us too. Yes, that’s very true. But it’s also bad for us.
So what in Heaven’s name can we do?
We can slow down the process by which we age and get sick, that’s what we can do. And to cut through all the hype and confusion, let’s get back to some basics.
Beware! The Free-Radical Horde......
The single biggest threat we need to counter as we grow older is the dreaded free-radical. Nowadays there is a medical consensus that free-radicals are the initiators of just about every disease known to man, including ageing. Indeed, free-radicals are the primary reason we grow old before our time. The neuro-degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, as well as cancer and heart disease, are all overwhelming free-radical catastrophes with which the body’s defenses are unable to cope.
What exactly are these free-radical events and what can we do to defend ourselves against such a formidable enemy?
Free-radicals are the by-product of the body’s normal metabolic processes. Oxygen, together with carbohydrates, proteins and fats, provide the essential fuel that our cells use to generate energy. When oxygen is used in this way, the oxygen molecule loses an electron and this is when it becomes a lonely free-radical and turns antisocial. A free-radical is simply a molecule that has lost an electron in its outer orbit, whereas a normal oxygen molecule has electrons that travel in happy pairs. This creates a state of instability and loneliness that free-radicals find intolerable. They attempt to restore the balance by stealing the missing electron from another molecule. In so doing, that molecule in turn loses an electron and a chain reaction is set up. Over time the result is in the accumulation of a Mongol horde of free-radicals with all the massive destructive capabilities of the Great Khan himself visited across the continent of your body.
Your Body is at War with Itself.....
One of the great paradoxes of life is our inability to survive without oxygen, and yet oxygen is very thing that ages and kills us. It is the exposure to oxygen that makes apples go brown, causes iron to rust and turns butter rancid. These very same processes are taking place in our cells every minute of the day. It is what puts “liver spots” on the backs of old people’s hands and causes all the chronic and degenerative diseases of old, and increasingly, middle age.
Our most fundamental energy block and what keeps us alive is our mitochondria. The venue for the production of cellular energy is the mitochondrion. Every cell in your body contains an assembly of mitochondria that busily go about their daily functions, generating energy. All this frenetic activity, which depends on the utilisation of oxygen, leads to the build-up of an excessive amount of free-radicals that are hell-bent on destroying the very tissue that created them.
Alas! Pity the poor hard-working mitochondria! Without them we are dead meat. They are pathetically vulnerable to the devastating effects of the larcenous and genocidal free-radicals. They have no repair systems, no protective coating and they are 2,000 times more susceptible to free-radical damage than the other components of your cells. They are wiped out by the million.
Alas, the number of mitochondria in your cells is finite and decrease with age, so you would be well advised to look after them. I don’t mean to ruin your social life but just one big night out, consuming lots of rich food and alcohol, and smoking or being exposed to cigarette smoke, and you will be mowing downing huge swathes of your mitochondria. As a result you then create armies of crippled and faulty mitochondria, which reproduce themselves. You end up with a woefully inadequate source of energy for your cells. Think of it like trying to light up your house with a number of tiny 1.5 volt batteries. It doesn’t really work that well.
Once energy is not produced efficiently, all your cellular processes go into decline and age-related diseases are able to establish themselves. That is why ageing and all the diseases that go with it are caused by the progressive damage that your mitochondria sustain at the hands of free-radicals. As the body ages, there is an increase in the formation of free-radicals and a decline in available defenses. With so much oxygen being consumed it is not surprising that free-radicals proliferate.
What is needed is a means to withstand and slow down this merciless onslaught. It can be done, and it’s well worth doing if you want to lead a long and active life - but, at the risk of stating the obvious, you will succumb in the end. That’s life.
Antiox to the Rescue!
But fear not - all need not be lost!The 7th Cavalry is on the way in the shape of our brave and wonderful antioxidants, Scourge of the Free-radicals and Preserver of Life. Those deviant free-radicals are caused by the normal processes of your body, which are also increased with exercise or exposure to toxic chemicals, car exhaust fumes, pesticides, herbicides, cigarette smoke and all other pollutants to which you are constantly subjected. This is where the noble antioxidant comes to our rescue. What antioxidants do in their infinite generosity is donate electrons in order to neutralise the effects of free-radicals. If degenerative diseases result from an imbalance between free-radicals and antioxidant defenses, having a good supply of antioxidants will prevent the diseases of ageing from establishing themselves.
Antioxidants perform best when they operate synergistically. Your body is rather like a village under threat from a forest fire. All the neighbours pitch in bringing buckets of water to put out one fire, but the conflagration is remorseless and ignites another house. Eventually the village defenses are overwhelmed and the village consumed but in the meantime you have had a life.
For example, when vitamin E neutralises a free-radical it loses an electron, and in so doing becomes a free-radical itself. Vitamin C then steps in and rescues vitamin E by donating an electron, which allows the vitamin E to continue its antioxidant activity. Vitamin C itself then becomes a free-radical and is dependent on another antioxidant for its regeneration.
You’re the Tops!
When it comes to antioxidants, the most crucial are those that protect the mitochondria. Coenzyme Q10, alpha-lipoic acid, acetyl-l-carnitine, vitamin E and vitamin C are the most vital as far as mitochondrial support is concerned. Together they form the most formidable ramparts against the relentless ravages of the free-radical hordes. If you can maintain the health of your mitochondria, you will provide your cells with sufficient energy to continue their daily functions. Along with maintaining hormonal health, combating free-radicals with antioxidants are the two fundamental ways you can preserve your health and vitality way into old age. The nutrients mentioned here are the ones most vital for your brain, heart and all the other organ systems of your body.
In the venture of your good health, unless you are filthy rich, the name of the game is “Prevention”. It’s the way the world is going whether it wants to or not. Pretty soon preventative medicine is the only kind of medical treatment most of us will be able to afford anyway, so you might as well get used to the idea.
The very Oxygen we breathe, that keeps us alive, kills us in the end. That’s the way of it. In life, our bodies are at war with themselves. Here’s how to tip the scales your way.....
ParacelsusAsia
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