A standard question asked by those engaged with taking care of their health is “should I be taking anti-oxidant supplements or eating antioxidant foods to maintain good health. Although it is thought that antioxidants do help stop certain sicknesses like cancer, Alzheimer’s and others, research has shown that supplements may very well do more damage than benefit.
Antioxidant foods on the other hand are favourable for more than one reason. Whereas a supplement will contain only one sort of antioxidant , any one particular food may contain 1 or 2 hundred different types. Also one will gain the benefits of eating natural healthy foods. To appreciate this slightly better let’s have a look at precisely why they are thought to be beneficial.
Antioxidants are said to be of benefit to the human body as their main role is to neutralise any free radical agents inside our bodies. Free radical agents happen inside us in 2 different ways. Firstly they happen naturally as they’re a byproduct of our natural cell metabolism and second they can be ingested into the body in forms like cigaret smoke.
While these free radical agents do offer some benefits to us generally regarding the immunological response there are bigger negative’s which affect us adversely. In a process called oxidation these free radicals can damage and harm healthy cells. This process is also believed to be a significant factor behind the beginning of certain diseases. So by neutralising these supposedly harmful free radicals antioxidants perhaps play a major role on not only keeping our cells healthy but may stop the beginning of several possible diseases.
Now that we understand what anti oxidising compounds do which type should we take, the supplements or the foodstuff containing rich sources of them. While the studies of supplements are not conclusive and whether they can have negative results is uncertain I for one will be sticking with the natural strategy and consuming the foodstuffs.
www.antioxidantfoods.co is a website specifically designed to chat about the roles and advantages ofantioxidant foods and how they play a role in our daily health regime. Antioxidant foods versus supplements is a much discussed subject and can be read about on this site.
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