The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth: and he that is wise will not abhor them.

--Ecclesiasticus 38:4-5

Of all the nutrients that comprise the Anti-Aging Supplement Program, antioxidants have the most direct and profound influence over Renewal. After all, they--and only they--can neutralize those cell- damaging, disease-causing particles known as free radicals.

And the more antioxidants you have in your system, the better the Renewal process works. Cells receive optimum protection from free radical attack, increasing your odds of staying healthy and youthful for a lifetime.

If you've read this book from the beginning, you already know a great deal about antioxidants. So before getting into the specifics of supplementation, this chapter just briefly recaps how antioxidants and free radicals behave in the body. (If you've skipped around the book, I suggest perusing at least chapters 2 and 3 before tackling this one.)

One key point that I want to reiterate up front: Antioxidants are absolutely vital to your long-term survival. Without them, free radicals would quickly decimate your body's cells--all 75 trillion or so of them. Instead of shooting for 120 years, you'd be lucky to last 120 minutes. No matter what your current age, antioxidants have gotten you this far--and they'll help keep you around for decades to come.

Molecular Misfits

You have two ages: your chronological age, which is determined by your year of birth, and your biological age, which reflects the amount of free radical damage that has occurred within your body to date. The total number of free radical "hits" inflicted on your cells so far serves as a measure of the rate at which you are aging.

As you'll recall from chapter 2, a free radical randomly assaults cells in a desperate attempt to find a partner for its unpaired electron. The highly charged, highly unstable molecular fragment may puncture cell membranes, destroy enzymes, and even break down DNA just to steal an electron from another molecule.

Some free radicals occur naturally, as your cells burn food for energy (a process called oxidative metabolism). Other free radicals come from exposure to ultraviolet radiation (sunlight), radon, x-rays, pollutants, pesticides, food additives, alcohol, and other toxins.

To give you an idea of how much damage free radicals can do, consider that these renegade molecules strike and fracture every single one of your DNA molecules 10,000 times a day. About 9,900 of these breaks in the DNA strand are restored to normal by DNA repair enzymes. About 100, or 1 percent, escape the enzymes' notice. This unrepaired damage accumulates over time, setting the stage for atherosclerosis, cancer, and other degenerative diseases. You can see why slowing the damage--by increasing antioxidant protection--translates directly into longer life span.

When Free Radicals Run Amok

Your body works hard to protect cells against free radical attack. But it can do only so much. Should its antioxidant defenses become too weak, or its free radical exposure become too great, it can suffer a catastrophic breakdown known as oxidative stress. In oxidative stress, free radicals run rampant within the body, corrupting and killing cells.

On a global scale, oxidative stress has claimed more lives than all of the wars and plagues throughout human history. It causes all of the degenerative diseases that go hand in hand with aging. Nothing causes more human misery or ends more lives prematurely.

Oxidative stress commits its greatest offenses at the cellular level. Rampaging free radicals injure the cell's membranes, compromising the delivery of nutrients and the removal of waste. They damage the mitochondria, impairing the production of energy. They break protein molecules, disrupting crucial enzyme systems. And they fracture DNA, causing the genetic mutations and uncontrolled cell divisions that eventually lead to cancer.

Blood fats such as low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol also suffer the wrath of oxidative stress. Research suggests that, despite its reputation as the "bad" kind of cholesterol, LDL itself is harmless. Only when oxidized--that is, only when it gives up an electron to a free radical--does LDL cause the arterial hardening and clogging that lay the groundwork for heart attack and stroke. This explains why about half of all people with elevated total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol never experience heart attacks: Their LDL has not undergone oxidation.

Unseen Destruction

Oxidative stress--when free radicals overrun the body and cause extensive damage--dramatically accelerates the aging process. It's also directly responsible for a host of health problems, some of which I've listed here.

• AIDS
• Alzheimer's disease
• Arrhythmia (abnormal heartbeat)
• Atherosclerosis (hardening and clogging of the arteries)
• Autoimmune disease (destruction of healthy tissues by immune cells)
• Cancer
• Cataracts
• Degenerative retinal damage
• Diabetes
• Emphysema
• Heart attack
• Lupus
• Macular degeneration (cell breakdown in the retina that leads to vision loss)
• Multiple sclerosis
• Pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas)
• Parkinson's disease
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Stroke

Stalling Oxidative Stress

How do some folks manage to avoid oxidative stress? First, they minimize their free radical exposure. Second, they increase their antioxidant protection. Both strategies are necessary to prevent disease and promote Renewal.

You can significantly reduce your free radical exposure by eliminating or at least limiting your consumption of foods of animal origin. Meats, poultry, fish, dairy products, and eggs--although devoid of protective antioxidants--have abundant supplies of free radical-forming fats. They're also likely to contain residues of pesticides, herbicides, and other free radical-producing toxins.

Other environmental poisons, from pollutants in the air you breathe to chemicals in the water you drink, generate free radicals as well. While you have less control over them than over your diet, you should still limit your contact with them as much as you can.

To increase your antioxidant protection, start by rebuilding your diet around the New Four Food Groups--grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. These foods are naturally rich in antioxidants and virtually devoid of free radical-forming compounds. Then fortify your diet with the supplements prescribed in the Anti-Aging Supplement Program. They'll raise your antioxidant intakes to optimum levels and reinforce your body's natural defenses against free radicals and oxidative stress.

Your Best Protection

An antioxidant can neutralize a free radical by donating one of its electrons without jeopardizing its own chemical stability. (Remember, two electrons are required to form a stable molecular bond.) Once the antioxidant gives up an electron, it remains out of service until it is recharged or replaced. It may be "recycled" by another antioxidant--that is, it may receive a "new" electron--so it can join the free radical fray once again. Antioxidants often cooperate in this way to keep each other operational.

Because free radicals are generated in different areas or compartments of the body, and because antioxidants vary in their ability to penetrate these compartments, an array of antioxidants is necessary to keep free radicals in check. These protective nutrients work synergistically, patrolling different but often overlapping territories within the body.

Vitamin C, for example, is water-soluble. It hangs out primarily in the water compartment, or the blood. Vitamin E is fat-soluble, so it stakes out the cell membrane compartment, which consists primarily of fats. Coenzyme Q₁₀ and glutathione position themselves next to the mitochondrial membranes, where they field the barrage of free radicals that's released as the mitochondria convert food into energy. Each of the other antioxidants has its favorite hangout, just as these do.

Since different antioxidants have different functions, you want to make sure that you're getting a broad range rather than just one or two. For example, some people take lots of vitamin C, to the exclusion of everything else. Granted, vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant. But it isn't fat-soluble, so it offers little protection to cell membranes and other "fatty" structures. These require vitamin E, essential fatty acids, and carotenoids, all of which are fat-soluble.

The Antioxidant Alliance

Your body's antioxidant arsenal consists of three types of weaponry: essential nutrients, phytochemicals, and enzymes. All are equally important, and all work together to defeat free radicals. Let's examine each one.

Antioxidant essential nutrients. As explained in the previous chapter, essential nutrients are those that your body cannot make for itself and cannot survive without. It just so happens that several of these nutrients also have antioxidant properties. These include vitamins A, C, and E as well as the essential fatty acids and certain amino acids. (For a complete listing, with doses, see "Just the Essentials.")

Certain minerals--namely, copper, selenium, and zinc--are often referred to as antioxidants. Technically, that's a misnomer because they lack the ability to neutralize free radicals. They do, however, play key roles in the body's production of antioxidant enzymes (which I will discuss a bit later).

Coenzyme Q₁₀ earns essential nutrient status only once you reach age 30. Prior to that, your body makes enough of this potent free radical fighter on its own. But through your thirties and beyond, production declines markedly. Many researchers believe that this genetically programmed coenzyme Q₁₀ deficiency shortens human life span considerably by opening the door to chronic oxidative stress.

Antioxidant phytochemicals. Phytochemicals number in the thousands. Though they can act as antioxidants, they have myriad other ways in which they further reduce oxidative stress. For instance, they can block the transformation of precursor molecules into free radicals and carcinogens. And they can enhance the repair of DNA by increasing the activity of antioxidant enzymes such as glutathione.

Only foods of plant origin--grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables-- supply phytochemicals. Foods of animal origin do not. For optimum intake of phytochemicals, nothing beats a low-fat vegan diet. To further boost your intake of these "supernutrients," try capsules containing concentrated fruit/vegetable extracts, such as Juice Plus made by NSA and Phytaloe made by Mannatech. (For more information on supplementation and phytochemicals, see the next chapter.)

Antioxidant enzymes. The human body can manufacture its own antioxidant enzymes. But to do so, it needs proteins, which it synthesizes from the amino acids in foods. This process evolved thousands of years ago, as the body sought to maintain its antioxidant supply during periods when sustenance was scarce. When it wasn't getting enough antioxidants from dietary sources, it could make its own.

Every cell in your body manufactures a trio of special antioxidant enzymes: glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, and catalase. These homemade compounds work jointly with other antioxidants, taking on free radicals wherever they might appear.

By far the most important of the three antioxidant enzymes is glutathione. It guards a cell's various membranes, including those all-important mitochondrial membranes.

In my practice, I often run a test called an oxidative stress profile, which measures free radical activity. The test reveals, among other things, the status of a patient's glutathione reserves. If they're low, I recommend a product called ThioDox. It contains glutathione as well as two of the enzyme's precursors: N-acetylcysteine and lipoic acid. This combination is far more effective than glutathione alone. ThioDox is available in health food stores and from alternative doctors.

Sizing Up Supplements

So which antioxidants should you include in your personal anti-aging supplement program? Well, that's really up to you. As I've said before: The extent to which you follow the Renewal Anti-Aging Supplement Program determines the extent to which you'll benefit from it.

Of the three types of antioxidants, the essential nutrients are most important. Your body must have these to function, regardless of their free radical-fighting properties. If you take supplements of the essential nutrients, as I recommended in the previous chapter, you'll be getting optimum amounts of the antioxidants, too.

As for the antioxidant phytochemicals, the Anti-Aging Diet--with its emphasis on grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables--supplies these nutrients in abundance. In fact, foods are still the best sources of phytochemicals. Supplementation won't compensate for a poor diet, but it can afford extra protection.

Supplementation of glutathione (and its precursors, N-acetylcysteine and lipoic acid) may be called for if you have a deficiency of the antioxidant enzyme. A nutrition-minded doctor can evaluate your glutathione level by administering the oxidative stress profile.

The goal of antioxidant supplementation is to reduce oxidative stress. By pulling the plug on this free radical free-for-all, you can dramatically slow the aging process. But don't think you have to wait until you're in your eighties or nineties to find out if reducing oxidative stress really makes a difference. You see, it's not just an anti-aging strategy but also an optimum health strategy. It will make you feel better right now.

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Phytochemicals are probably the least known and least understood of the antioxidants. Yet if the latest research is any indication, these "supernutrients" may turn out to be your greatest anti-aging allies. The next chapter explains why.