Health Appeal

I Am NOT A Test Tube!

I am of the generation that swore they would never get old. I do not run to the doctor every time I sneeze, nor do I take any maintenance medications. I try to eat healthy, exercise and simply enjoy life. I also take supplements to get my recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals. However, during my journey to stay healthy, I started hearing one word over and over again. “Antioxidants.” What are they, anyway?

It seems that everyone is jumping on the band wagon when it comes to promoting their product which contains antioxidants. I have seen commercials promoting anything from chocolate to dog food; and I have heard sales pitches from nutrition companies. Honestly, I never gave much thought to what antioxidants were. I mean, who cares?

But now I want to understand what people are saying, so I did a little research. To explain antioxidants, I will start off with explaining something that we are already familiar with. Oxidation. What happens to a shovel when you leave it outside in the rain? It rusts. What happens to an apple when you slice it and leave it on the counter? It starts turning brown. You get the idea - that is what oxidation does.

Well, it is the same for your body. As cells function normally in the body, they produce damaged molecules - called free radicals (oxidation). These free radicals are the bad guys (boo, hiss!). These thugs steal from the good cells (such as fat, protein, or DNA), thereby damaging the good cells. This damage continues in a chain reaction, and soon, your good cells will die. We need these good cells to stay healthy and alive!

Antioxidants help prevent widespread good cell destruction by donating components to stabilize free radicals (so they will stop stealing from the good cells). More importantly, antioxidants reinforce the good cells’, making them healthier, which allows them to perform their duties of keeping you healthy. When there are not enough antioxidants in your body, free radicals begin damaging healthy cells which, in turn, can lead to problems. For example, free radical damage to immune cells can lead to an increased risk of infections. So antioxidants really are a good thing.

But how do you know which antioxidants will actually help you? Would you like to know how many products prove their claims? They check it in a TEST TUBE. Laboratories test levels using a method called ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity). Anybody can have their product tested if they simply pay for it.

But, this test can not determine if an antioxidant will actually work in your body, and that is a far more important thing to know. Sadly, many high-ORAC fruit antioxidants are poorly absorbed from the digestive tract, or not at all. What good are antioxidants if they simply pass through your system?

What your body really needs are antioxidants that circulate in the blood to protect every cell against harmful free radicals, but our production of these essential antioxidants diminishes with age, or if we are under stress. You have probably already experienced how you feel when you become stressed.

So how do you know which products offer the best antioxidants that will actually absorb into your system and benefit you? Go natural. Eat all natural products such as nuts, grains, fruits and vegetables. If you choose a supplement, make sure it is all natural and preservative free. I personally recommend Himalayan GoChi Juice. I know that they have done their Antioxidant tests on humans with excellent results (click here to see the Study).

And, this is just my opinion, but when I hear “as shown on the ORAC scale,” I am turning around and running in the opposite direction! After all, I am a human being, not a test tube!

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