Combat Ageing - The human lifespan simply reflects the level of free radical damage that accumulates in cells. When enough damage accumulates, cells can’t survive properly anymore and they just simply give up. Aging has been considered the slow oxidation of our bodies. Those brown age spots on the back of peoples hands? That's oxidized fat under the skin. Oxidant stress is why we get wrinkles, why we lose some of our memory and why our organ systems break down as we get older.
Combat the effects of stress and pollutants - antioxidant levels can plummet within two hours of a stressful event and can take up to three days to get our levels back up again. When we’re sick, stressed, or tired, we need to be soaking our bloodstream with antioxidants—which means high-powered fruits and vegetables at every meal and sipping something like green tea all day long.
Improve skin colour, attractiveness and prevent wrinkles - Three things contribute to the aging of skin: 1) Oxidative stress induced by sun-damage, 2) inflammation, and 3) lack of adequate blood flow. All three can be influenced by diet, even against the sun. The ingestion of plant foods increases the antioxidant levels of our bloodstream and tissues which protects us against the suns rays. In one study, simply eating 3 tablespoons of tomato paste every day for 10 weeks prior to exposure to a UV lamp reduced the redness of sunburn by 40%. In another study, green tea phytonutrients were able to protect skin against harmful UV radiation, and help improve skin quality of women. After a few months of green tea, there was a 16% reduction in skin roughness, and a 25% reduction in scaling. And how do you tell if someone’s healthy? You look for that golden glow that comes from the carotenoid antioxidants in fruits and vegetables which was found to increase the attractiveness of African, Asian, and Caucasian faces. College students going from three servings a day to nine servings a day for just six weeks significantly improved skin color and attractiveness.
Fight cancer - fruits and vegetables protect against cancer because their antioxidants prevent the buildup of free radicals which would otherwise go on to damage our cellular DNA — which could lead to the transformation of healthy cells into damaged, diseased, or dying cells. Phytonutrients can also increase our cellular defenses so that even if there is some damage to our DNA, our cells may recover instead of being lost forever.
Improve mental health - Accumulating evidence indicates that oxidative free radicals may play important roles in the development of various psychiatric disorders, including major depression. A higher total blood carotenoid level was associated with a lower likelihood of elevated depressive symptoms - and the higher the levels, the better people felt. However only food sources of antioxidants were protectively associated with depression, not antioxidants from pills.
And what is the number one most antioxidant rich single wholefood on the planet? Amla
Read our blog post 'What are antioxidants and why do we need them?' to learn what causes free radicals and more.
Sources
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/minimum-recommended-daily-allowance-of-antioxidants/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-to-reach-the-antioxidant-rda/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/mitochondrial-theory-of-aging/
https://nutritionfacts.org/2013/04/18/the-anti-wrinkle-diet/
Preventing Skin Cancer from the Inside Out | NutritionFacts.org
Eating Better to Look Better | NutritionFacts.org
Produce, Not Pills, to Increase Physical Attractiveness | NutritionFacts.org
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/golden-glow/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/rosy-glow/
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/plant-based-diets-and-cellular-stress-defenses/
Antioxidants and Depression | NutritionFacts.org
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