Turn On Your Body’s Antioxidant Power!

Everyone’s talking about the age-defying benefits of antioxidants, but do you know what antioxidants are—and how they actually work?

The U.S. Government’s Medline Plus database defines antioxidants as substances that help to protect your cells against the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are molecules produced when your body breaks down food or by environmental sources such as tobacco smoke, radiation, and automobile exhaust. You even produce harmful free radicals when you exercise! Left unchecked, free radicals can damage or kill cells. They play a role in heart disease, cancer, and other diseases, and they can also contribute to the premature aging of your body and mind.

Fortunately, antioxidants can come to the rescue! The antioxidant process in your body is similar to stopping an apple from browning. Once you cut an apple, it begins to brown, but you can prevent discoloration by dipping each slice in lemon juice, which contains the antioxidant vitamin C.

Antioxidants are divided into two classes: the dietary antioxidants that you get from food, and the endogenous antioxidants that are made by the body. In addition to vitamin C, dietary antioxidants also include beta-carotene, vitamin E, selenium, and polyphenols such as anthocyanins, flavonoids, and xanthones. Polyphenols are found in some fruits and juices, and even though they may look impressive in antioxidant tests such as ORAC, those tests only measure antioxidant potential in a test tube. The truth is that most antioxidants in fruits and juices do not perform well in the human body because they are poorly absorbed and therefore remain trapped in the digestive tract, and this has been shown in important scientific studies.

We believe that it is far more meaningful to human health to maintain high serum levels of the body’s own endogenous antioxidants, namely superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase. These vital antioxidant enzymes circulate in the blood throughout the entire body to neutralize all types of free radicals before they can do harm.

Here are some tips for increasing your body’s antioxidant power to help prevent premature aging:

1. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” These words of wisdom are from Michael Pollan’s remarkable new book, In Defense of Food. His directives are simple, sensible, and to the point:

• “Eat food” – Eat a wide variety of the kinds of natural and healthy foods that your grandparents ate, not today’s unhealthy processed or “engineered” foods that are loaded with salt, fat, or high-fructose corn syrup. The digestion and metabolism of processed foods can deplete your body’s vital endogenous antioxidants.
• “Not too much” – The more calories you consume, the more free radicals you generate. Animal studies have shown that those that eat less live longer, healthier lives.
• Mostly plants” – Plant-based foods are healthier and put far less oxidative stress on the body. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, and nuts also contain beneficial phytonutrients that can contribute to health and well-being.

2. Drink 4 ounces (120 ml) of GoChi every day!