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Teach Your Body To Make Fewer Free Radicals

The reason antioxidants appear to be effective is that they neutralize the effects of free radicals. The more free radicals in the body, the more antioxidants are needed to counter their harmful effects.

Free radicals are created when the cells metabolize nutrients, that is, when they turn food into energy. So, more food means more free radicals, which means a greater strain on the antioxidant defenses.

On the other hand, the less food the body has to handle, the less the production of free radicals, and the less damage they can do on the body. That is the principle behind so-called caloric restriction, a concept which has been proven to dramatically prolong the lives of animals in the laboratory. It basically means eating much less than what would be considered a normal caloric intake. 20 to 40 percent less, to be exact.

Caloric restriction experiments in mice and rats have been conducted with the animals sometimes doubling their life expectancy when being fed a severely reduced calorie diet while maintaining vital nutrient levels.

It might just work

Does it work on humans? Can we, too, lengthen our lives by eating much less than we otherwise would? That is still unknown. Because humans have much longer lifespans than mice, any such effect would take a long time to measure. But it does seem to make sense, since animals seem to metabolize nutrients in much the same way as we do.

It certainly couldn't hurt to try, and some people are doing just that. However, to most people, serious caloric restriction is too strong a measure to be practical. Just reducing the caloric intake by, say, 20 percent every day would require a very serious commitemnt to most people – remember that you'd have to do this for the rest of your life if it were to have any effect.

Of course, if we knew for a fact that we would live longer with caloric restriction, it might be a different story. For the time being, we don't know that, even though the indications are strong that it might just work.

Do all three

But there is another way. Researchers have found that vigorous exercise helps the mitochondria in the cells burn nutrients more effectively and with less free radicals. Exercise is good for many reasons, of course, and vigorous exercise should be a part of everyone's daily routine. This is only one more reason to get moving, and one of the better ones, in my opinion.

This is a new development. It has been well known that exercising regularly would greatly enhance the body's efficiency in dealing with free radicals. When we exercise, the body handles more oxygen than usual, which trains it to better resist oxidative stress in the long term. However, until recently, it has not been recognized that the cells will immediately start to «clean up» the metabolism.

This means that we have another weapon in our arsenal. What if you reduce your intake of empty calories (although perhaps not so much that it could be called caloric restriction), are very conscious about getting enough entioxidants every day, and, in addition to that, exercise? It might be the best way to get the most out of our intake of antioxidants.

That way, the antioxidants have an easier fight against fewer oxidants, and we keep our antioxidant defenses well trained, abundantly stocked up and well armed. Right now, you can't do much better than that.

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