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Get Your Antioxidants from the Garden
Antioxidants. From glossy magazine spreads, news pundits, health food enthusiasts, advertising and product labeling, we learn about their miraculous power to slow, stop, even reverse the clock of aging and to protect us from disease. Inspired to be healthier, we invest in supplemental vitamins, we buy products touting antioxidant ingredients, we super-dose on the antioxidant du jour, hoping to stave off one disease or the other.
Fascination with antioxidants sprang out of the theory of free radicals, which reads a bit like science fiction. Free radicals are molecules missing an electron in the outer shell. These unstable molecules cause harm by stealing electrons from other molecules and are thought to cause oxidative stress in the human body. An example of oxidative stress to which everyone can relate is rust on an iron nail. The rust compromises the integrity of the nail, eventually weakening the nail’s ability to do its intended job. Theoretically, this is what oxidative stress does to the human body, impairing cells, tissues and organs from properly performing their roles.
These free radicals are theorized to be the culprits in degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, cancer and diabetes, and the aging process in general. So the question then becomes how to reduce free radical damage. The proposed answer: oxidative reduction. Oxidative reduction is a chemical reaction in which an electron is transferred from one molecule to another, thus stabilizing the molecule, i.e., free radical, receiving the electron. This is the presumed role of antioxidants, to neutralize free radicals. As basic research gave clout to the theory in cell models and animal models, “The idea of antioxidants to counteract free radicals caught on,” says MCGHealth pulmonary and critical care physician Thomas Kennedy.
And it is admittedly alluring. Being Americans, who thrive on immediate gratification and a near insatiable desire for youth, we crave easy fixes for our wrinkles and our ails. With the help of the media and skillful advertising and our own wild imaginations, many of us have placed all of our chips on the antioxidant card. But Dr. Kennedy, who also has a master’s degree in public health, cautions not to jump on the bandwagon too quickly. “It’s simplistic to assume that all free radicals are bad and must be fought,” he says. “If we didn’t have free radicals life would cease.”
Consider the natural metabolic function of cells. Mitochondria essentially convert glucose to energy in the form of a molecule called adenosine triphosphate. Free radicals are a byproduct of this process necessary for the survival of living organisms. Therefore, a cell doing what it is programmed to do, to sustain life, is not automatically a problem. Dr. Kennedy says, “Too much of anything in the wrong place is not good for you.”
Despite evidence to the contrary, many people put their faith in vitamin supplements to fight free radical damage, thus to fight aging and diseases associated with aging. Research indicates that increasing intake of known antioxidants, like vitamins A, C, E and the mineral selenium, may actually negatively affect health. For example, taking large amounts of vitamin A supplements by pregnant women may lead to birth defects in fetuses. Blurred vision, an enlarged spleen and an enlarged liver are additional risks. Too much vitamin C can cause kidney stones. Mega-doses of vitamin E can interfere with proper blood clotting and taking more than the recommended daily allowance of selenium can result in fingernail and hair loss. According to studies (see September 2007 issue of The Journal of Nutrition; November 6, 1996 issue of Journal of National Cancer Institute; October 18, 2004 issue of Cochrane Database System Reviews), dosing up on antioxidant supplements may even increase the risk of some cancers. “There simply hasn’t been great support for super-physiological amounts of vitamins preventing or treating disease,” says Dr. Kennedy.
Greenberg writes, in his 2005 article, “Ten years have passed since publication of the first large trial showing that vitamin E supplementation had no effect in preventing cancer and cardiovascular disease, and subsequent trials have repeatedly confirmed this result. The story is similar for other presumed antioxidants, such as carotene and vitamin C.” Unfortunately, despite such opposing data, perhaps even in spite of it, the fervor over consuming antioxidants has drawn strength. Dr. Kennedy calls it a craze.
Furthermore, although health supplements are a major industry—according to Hoover’s, Inc., the U.S. health supplement store industry includes around 5,000 companies operating about 10,000 stores with combined annual revenue of approximately $6 billion—vitamin pills and other dietary supplements are not FDA regulated. According to Robin Borders, a registered dietician and a nutritionist and clinical dietician with MCGHealth, “Supplements contain fillers and...you may not know how much you are getting or how much your body is using.” She says the same is true of lotions and creams with labels touting antioxidative value. “That’s just all advertising,” says Dr. Kennedy. “There aren’t careful, long studies to back any claims.”
Borders and Dr. Kennedy, along with the American Dietetic Association, concur that the best way to consume vitamins and minerals is in unprocessed food—food that looks the way it did when it was harvested. Humans are designed to eat fruits and vegetables. Fresh foods are particularly beneficial. “Your ancestors didn’t have to [take vitamins] and you don’t either,” says Dr. Kennedy. “Get your vitamins the way nature intended.” Eating a wide variety of colorful fruits and vegetables will provide proper amounts of all of the vitamins and minerals believed to have antioxidant properties. Borders adds, “If you’re following the food pyramid, you’re going to get 100 percent of your antioxidants.” Plus, there’s no need to obsess over which antioxidant is getting media attention this week and whether or not you’re getting enough of it to prevent whatever disease it’s been linked to.
All of the vitamins and minerals believed to be powerful antioxidants occur naturally in foods available in the grocery produce section and the meat department. Many of these foods can even be grown in a backyard garden. Anything orange, such as sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, apricots and mangos, contains beta-carotene. Spinach, kale, collard greens and other leafy green vegetables contain beta-carotene and lutein. Red foods, like watermelon, blood oranges, pink grapefruit, guava and papaya, are a good source of lycopene. Selenium is found in meat and is an added nutritional component in many breads (check labeling). Most vegetables, as well as citrus fruits, have vitamin C. Vitamin A is found in liver, sweet potatoes, carrots, milk, egg yolks and mozzarella cheese. Almond, safflower and corn oil contain vitamin E, as do nuts.
Dr. Kennedy, agreeing with mothers’ time-tested mantras of “Eat your vegetables” and “Too much of a good thing can be bad for you,” attributes the vast majority of diseases of aging to too many calories and not enough exercise. There’s simply no substitute for eating right. Whether you think the antioxidant approach to fighting disease and aging has merit or whether you don’t, it behooves us all to eat as nature intended and get plenty of exercise, two habits with medically-proven benefits. As Dr. Kennedy says, “Life is a lot more complex than preventing everything with vitamin C and E.”
