 Antioxidants are considered the holy grail of just about every diet, the positive. In nutrition we are constantly promoting foods and supplements with alleged antioxidant benefits, but why is no one explaining what antioxidants actually do in the body? We spoke about inflammation last week in a similar context, but this time the definition available to the general public is slightly more accurate. A substance that inhibits oxidation, especially one used to counteract the deterioration of stored food products, a substance such as vitamin C or E that removes potentially damaging oxidizing agents in a living organism. And yes, this is correct to some degree. Think of antioxidants as a preventative measure for oxidative stress, but if the oxidative stress is too great, if there are too many free radicals, inflammation will occur. Antioxidants in a way are similar to putting water on a fire. A match or a candle is easy to put out. But if the fire gets out of control, a grease fire, a forest fire, there is no way of putting that out with any amount of water. You simply have to let it burn. We can't let our bodies burn though. Now why is everyone talking about fruits, vegetables, dozens of antioxidants, compounds with fancy dancing names, including rutin, myricidin, quercetin, galotecan, catechin, flavonoids, all of these things, probably dozens of others. They take these fruits that have these alleged antioxidants, freeze dry them to concentrate the compounds, and then those powders are mixed in test tubes with certain human cells. This works because plants have natural antioxidant compounds that when exposed directly to oxidants like sunlight, like oxygen, can neutralize them. However, these antioxidants don't apply to human digestion. Eating blueberry does not place it next to the oxidized cholesterol in your artery, but that is what they are doing in this study. I have not seen proof that plant antioxidants are utilized by human digestion when consumed in whole food form outside of the vitamin C or the vitamin E that might be present. Just like a fire hydrant can only pump so much water, our cells in our body can only utilize so many of these antioxidants, past the point of benefit they actually start doing the opposite, causing oxidative stress themselves. So the overarching point here is going to be to remove inflammatory aspects in your lifestyle, to where they are manageable, and to get optimal amounts of these antioxidants. Here we have the vitamin E cycle, vitamin C cycle, and the Theol cycle. The chief antioxidant systems in the body. They are linked together because there is antioxidant synergism between alpha-tocopherol, ascorbate, glutathione, and several other transport proteins. Depending on your individual genetics and lifestyle, the amount of nutrients you need to optimize these cycles is variable. These processes are inhibited by several things, EMF, poor quality food, and toxins or pollutants in the environment. Those are all of the things that can cause oxidative stress leading to inflammation in the body. The main role of vitamin E is to prevent lipid peroxidation, which is the oxidation of fats. So you'll notice that a food higher in polyunsaturated fats, which are the primary fats prone to oxidation, will inherently have more vitamin E. It's why they add vitamin E to fish oils to prolong the shelf life. The same thing is occurring in the fatty tissues in your body. In your cholesterol cells, for instance, those cholesterol cells are taking up vitamin E to prevent the oxidation of themselves. As we see in the cycle, polyunsaturated fats, oxygen, and sunlight cause oxidation, which is prevented by vitamin E. The main danger here is consuming oxidized fats, especially vegetable seed oils, or just in general, that's very prone to oxidation. Vitamin C is not only crucial for so many functions in our body, such as enzymes and hormones. It is necessary for regenerating other antioxidants like vitamin E, which also regulates cells, involves an immune function, collagen synthesis, iron absorption, so many functions for vitamin C. Vitamin C can donate electrons to free radicals and quench their reactivity. Through this mechanism, vitamin C is a very effective scavenger against oxidative stress. After the scavenging, it is oxidized to dehydroscorbic acid, which may be converted back to ascorbic acid for reuse or metabolized further, releasing more electrons. The vitamin C cycle requires other antioxidants such as glutathione for maximal activity. Then we have the thial cycle, containing glutathione, which is considered the master antioxidant as it binds to oxidative compounds that damage cells, DNA, energy production. Vitamin C and vitamin E are incapable of removing many antioxidants that glutathione can neutralize. Glutathione is produced in the methylation cycle, which is necessary for the production of very important substances, including creatine, phosphatidylcholine, hormones, and much more. We could go into further detail of the glutathione systems as well as the thio-redoxin systems, but there are so many different molecules and enzymes that I might as well be given a biochemistry lecture. The point is that both the glutathione system and the thio-redoxin system are two cellular disulfide reductase systems, a basic summary being that they are the most important antioxidant systems in cells. These are the chief cycles, but just about every single vitamin and mineral, even fatty acid, can be linked to antioxidant properties in some capacity, either because it has direct free radical scavenging capabilities such as vitamin A or it is a component of an enzyme such as selenium for glutathione. So for vitamin E it's pretty simple, just avoid low quality foods that are prone to oxidation, follow a high quality whole foods animal based diet. For vitamin C you want to consume fresh raw foods, whether it be meat, raw milk, raw fruit, the thio cycle is where it gets difficult and it's why everyone is so unhealthy. It requires large amounts of nutrients that are contained in animal foods, be vitamins, amino acids, minerals and bioavailable forms uninhibited by anti-nutrients come into plant foods. You may find articles saying like strawberries are high in glutathione, but that type is not absorbed. The only way to increase glutathione is to consume foods that promote glutathione synthesis, anything high in vitamin B12, sulfur, selenium, a raw milk smoothie with egg yolks being an excellent example. Outside of diet, exercise is the most beneficial thing, arguably just as important. We all know a lunatic marathon runner who doesn't eat that great, but is still in excellent health. Overall, just following the principles of indigenous diets, high quality animal and plant foods in their cooked, raw and fermented forms, active lifestyle, low stress environment and plenty of sunlight will not only optimize your antioxidant capacity, they are the foundation for human health. So thank you guys for joining me. If you could please like the video, subscribe, of course hit that bell icon. If you want to support me, if you want to help me further, please share the video if you can. If you guys do want to check out Frankie's Surrange Meat, high quality nutrient-dense animal foods at an affordable price, you can also go to Frankie's Naturals for minimal ingredients, minimally processed hygiene and cosmetic products. You want to reach out to me for one-on-one fitness and nutrition consultations, send me an email frank at frank-to-fano.com, go to my website that's down below. Thanks again for joining me guys and enjoy the rest of your day.