What are free radicals What is the role of antioxidants?

“Antioxidant” is a general term for any compound that can counteract unstable molecules called free radicals that damage DNA, cell membranes, and other parts of cells. Because free radicals lack a full complement of electrons, they steal electrons from other molecules and damage those molecules in the process.

What is the role of antioxidants in human system?

Antioxidants are substances that may protect your cells against free radicals, which may play a role in heart disease, cancer and other diseases. Free radicals are molecules produced when your body breaks down food or when you’re exposed to tobacco smoke or radiation.

What is free radical protection?

Antioxidants are molecules that prevent the oxidation of other molecules. Antioxidants are chemicals that lessen or prevent the effects of free radicals. They donate an electron to free radicals, thereby reducing their reactivity.

What role do free radicals play in the aging process?

Research on rats suggests that free radicals produced in the mitochondria damage the substances that the cell needs to work properly. This damage causes mutations that produce more free radicals, thus accelerating the process of damage to the cell. This theory helps explain aging, since aging accelerates over time.

What are free radicals in health?

Free radicals are compounds that can cause harm if their levels become too high in your body. They’re linked to multiple illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Your body has its own antioxidant defenses to keep free radicals in check.

What foods have free radicals?

1) Avoid high glycemic foods, or foods that are rich in refined carbohydrates and sugars. They are more likely to generate free radicals. 2) Limit processed meats such as sausages, bacon and salami. They contain preservatives, which leads to the production of free radicals.

Which of the following diseases are linked to free radical damage?

Evidence is accumulating that most of the degenerative diseases that afflict humanity have their origin in deleterious free radical reactions. These diseases include atherosclerosis, cancer, inflammatory joint disease, asthma, diabetes, senile dementia and degenerative eye disease.

What are sources of free radicals?

Free radicals and other ROS are derived either from normal essential metabolic processes in the human body or from external sources such as exposure to X-rays, ozone, cigarette smoking, air pollutants, and industrial chemicals.

Which statement best describes the action of antioxidants in the free radical theory of aging?

Which of the following best describes the action of antioxidants? They counteract the cell damage caused by free radicals.

Do antioxidants work against free radicals?

When an antioxidant destroys a free radical, this antioxidant itself becomes oxidized. Therefore, the antioxidant resources must be constantly restored in the body. Thus, while in one particular system an antioxidant is effective against free radicals, in other systems the same antioxidant could become ineffective.

What is the role of antioxidants in the fight against diseases?

If free radicals overwhelm the body’s ability to regulate them, a condition known as oxidative stress ensues. Free radicals thus adversely alter lipids, proteins, and DNA and trigger a number of human diseases. Hence application of external source of antioxidants can assist in coping this oxidative stress.

Why herbs and spices are the best targets for natural antioxidants?

Herbs and spices are most important targets to search for natural antioxidants from the point of view of safety. A wide variety of phenolic compounds present in spices that are extensively used as food adjuncts possess potent antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimutagenic, and cancer preventive activities.

What are free radicals and how do they affect the body?

If free radicals overwhelm the body’s ability to regulate them, a condition known as oxidative stress ensues. Free radicals thus adversely alter lipids, proteins, and DNA and trigger a number of human diseases.

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