How Antioxidants Work...
What is an Antioxidant...
The bit stars of the vitamin craze are the so called antioxidants: Vitamins C and E, and beta carotene, a form of Vitamin A with its own special properties. Since 1988 the U.S. market for Beta carotene supplements has soared from $7 million to $82 million a year, while vitamin E sales have jumped from $260 million to $338 million. The reason can be summed up in two words: free radicals. These molecules, which crop up in our bodies with every breath we take, are implicated in some 60 age-related afflictions, including cancer and heart disease. Unlike a stable molecule, in which every atom is ringed by pairs of electrons, a free radical carries an unmatched electron with a strong impulse to mate. By snatching an electron from a neighbor, it can set off a chain reaction that wreaks widespread havoc on cells, eating away at their membranes and damaging their genetic material.
The body has elaborate strategies for controlling this corrosive process, known as oxidation, but the safeguards aren't fool proof. Countless stresses, from smoking to aging, can accelerate oxidative damage. That's where the antioxidant vitamins come in. Biochemists have long suspected that vitamin E, vitamin C and beta carotene can neutralize fee radicals by binding their lonely electrons. The first hints that anioxidant vitamins might help prevent cancer came from surveys in the 1970s showing that incidence is lowest in populations where people consume the most fruits and vegitables. In a review published last year, Dr. Gladys Block of the University of California, Berkeley, tallied the restults of 20 studies that monitored the incidence of mouth, throat and stomach cancers in relation to vitamin C intake. In 18 of those 20 studies, low intake emerged as a clear risk factor: on average, people consuming the least vitamin C were stricken at twice the rate of those consuming the most.
Regina Ziegler, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute, uncovered similar trends when she analyzed more than 20 studies that tracked cancers of the lung andother tissues in relation to beta carotene intake. Virtually all the studies linked high levels of the nutrient to low rates of lung cancer. The studies showed similar but less dramatic patterns for cancers of the mouth, throat, stomach, bladder and rectum. It's possible, of course, that something other than vitamin intake accounts for the variations these studies have documented. To prove cause and effect, scientisits have put people on measured doses of particular vitamins and recorded the long-term effects. At least 12 such "chemopreventin" studies are underway. Health authorities have calculated that if antioxidants really explain all the variations seen in the population studies simply getting people to consume more of them could reduce U.S. canser mortality by a third.
Heart experts are notoriously skeptical of vitamin claims, but they, too, are embracing the antioxidant revolution - and with good reason. A decade of laboratory research has shown that oxidation is what makes cholesterol so harmful to coronary arteries (Newsweek, May 31), and there's growing evidence that antioxidants can block the phenomenon.
Only a handful of human studies have been published, but most have pointed in the same direction as the recent vitamin E findings at Harvard. Last year, after analyzing results from a decade long federal survey, researchers at UCLA reported that low vitamin C intake was a strong predictor of death from heart disease and other causes. During the study, men who consumed in the neighborhood of 300 milligrams daily (five times the RDA) suffered 40 percent fewer deaths than those consuming less than 50 milligrams. Meanwhile, reasearchers at Harvard have found preliminary evidence that 50 milligram beta carotene supplements, taken every other day, can halve the risk of heart attack among men with histories of cardiovascular disease. Such findings are doubly encouraging because the antioxidants are so safe. Excessive bitamin C may cause diarrhea, but the body expels what it can't use, so overdose isn't a danger. Vitamin E and beta carotene can accumulate in our fat stores, but neither is known to cause any side effect mor serious than a stomachache or a reversible yellowing of the skin.
As any doctor will tell you, the real secrets to good health are exercising, giving up cigarettes and substituting carrots for candy bars. Those measures alone could work much of the magic that millions of Americans now seek in vitamin pills. But there may be ecellent reasons to take supplements as well. If today's hopes are realized, mere vitamins may have the power to cut some common birth defects by half, protect the elderly from bone loss and hip fractures, and dramatically reduce the incidence of heart disease and cancer. Best of all, this medical revolution won't require a new generation of weaponry. Darrington Pharmacy is already armed to the teeth.
Information about Antioxidants provided by Nature's Blend Vitamins.
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