OXIDATIVE STRESS
Even though the average life expectancy has increased dramatically during this past century, our quality of life due to chronic degenerative disease has taken a major hit.
We are essentially “Living too short and dying too long”. Most of us can simply look forward to suffering and dying from heart disease, cancer, stroke, Diabetes, Alzheimers dementia, parkinsons disease, arthritis, Macular degeneration and the list just goes on and on, Unless we literally attack the underlying cause of All of these diseases – OXIDATIVE STRESS.
How long do you expect to live? Now envision what your last twenty years will be like
We should be more concerned not with the number of years in our lives, but with the quality of life in those years. Who wants to live to a ripe old age if he or she cannot even recognize close family members because of Alzheimers dementia? Who looks forward to a decade or two of suffering severe joint or back pain due to degenerative arthritis?
A friend recently told me that he simply wants to live until he dies. Is this your desire? It certainly is mine, and it certainly is of many many more, and that is why it is highly recommended we have preventative rather than post-problem medicine-empowering people to avoid getting major diseases in the first place.
It is therefore highly important that we take a three-fold approach to health
1: A well balanced diet.
2: Having a consistant exercise programme consisting of both strength and cardio
vascular training.
3: Daily consumption of a high quality, pharmaceutical grade nutritional supplement, medication should only be used as a last resort – not as a first choice.
An Abundant physical life does not need to start slipping at age forty, each year of your life can be your very best. But first you must understand the war that is waging within everyone of our bodies.
Oxygen is essential for life itself. But did you know it is also inherently dangerous to our existence? This is the “dark side” to oxygen. And as a result, we are essentially rusting both inside and out. The same process that causes a cut apple to turn brown or iron to rust is the cause of all the chronic degenerative diseases we fear and even the aging process itself.
Consider the aging of our skin. Oxidative stress is the cause of wrinkles, sagging skin and age spots.
Aging is a process we all take for granted, but when you look more closely, and compare a baby’s face to that of a grandparents, the effects of our largest organ being exposed to all the pollutants in the air, sunlight, and cigarette smoke is baffling. This aging of the skin is an outward manisfestation of “oxidative stress” which is occurring within every cell in your body.
So you may be thinking “what is Oxidative stress?”
Within every cell of the body is a furnace called the mitochondria. As oxygen is utilized within the furnace of the cell to create energy and life itself, occasionally a charged oxygen molecule is created called a “FREE RADICAL” this free radical has at least one unpaired electron in its outer orbit essentially giving it an electrical charge. If this free radical is not neutralized by an antioxidant it can go on to create more volatile free radicals, damage the cell wall, vessel wall, proteins, fats, and even the DNA nucleus of our cells. Chemically this reaction has been shown to be so volatile that it actually causes bursts of light within our bodies!!!!
The best way to explain the process of oxidation is, Imagine yourself infront of a crackling fireplace. The fire burns saftly and beautifully most of the time, but on occasion out pops a hot cinder that lands on your carpet and burns a little hole in it. One cinder by itself doesn’t pose much of a threat, but if this sparking and popping continues month after month, year after year, you will have a pretty “ratty” carpet infront of your fireplace.
The fireplace represents the furnace of the cell (the mitochondria), the cinder is the charged “free radical”, and the carpet is your body. Which ever part of your body receives the most free radical damage will be the first to waer out and potentially cause one of these degenerative diseases. If it’s your arteries, you could develop a heart attack or stroke. If its your brain, you could develop Alzheimers dementia or parkinsons disease. If its your joints, you could develop arthritis.
Through Biochemical research were learning that we are not defenceless against this attack on our body by free radicals. Antioxidants are like the glass doors – or the fine wire mesh of the fireguard we place in front of our fireplace. The sparks are still going to fly but our carpet will then be protected. As you begin to imagine the war that is taking place within every cell in your body, you can envision the two opposing forces: the enemy-free readicals, and your allies-antioxidants and their supporting nutrients.
Living a healthy life becomes a matter of balance. You must have enough antioxidants available to readily neutralize the number of free radicals your body produces. If you don’t “OXIDATIVE STRESS” will occur. When this oxidative stress is allowed to persist over a prolonged period of time, you will most likely develop a serious chronic degenerative disease.
Each of us must ask, “am I getting enough antioxidants from my diet to protect myself from this onslaught of free radicals, or do I need to be taking a high quality nutritional supplement.
A 14 year study at Harved University recently released a study showing that just to get the minimal amount of Vitamins and minerals we need on a daily basis we would need to be eating nine or more servings of fruit and vegetables on a daily basis. This is the minimum, this is not for optimal health.
Since balance is the key, we need to look closely at the individual players that are at war within. The number of free radicals you produce each and every day is never the same. All the pollutants in our air, food and water dramatically increase the number of free radicals we produce. Enormous stress, excessive exercise, cigarette smoke, sunlight radiation and every drug prescribed greatly increase the number of free radicals produced in the body. In fact there has never been a generation on this planet subjected to more oxidative stress than this present one. We are literally under attack from our pollutant environment, stressful lifestyles, and over medicated society.
This ongoing attack is depriving us of our most precious gift – our health, But we are not defenceless against this onslaught by free radicals. In fact, we actually have our own army of antioxidants, which are able to neutralize free radicals and render them harmless. In generations past, these defence systems were sufficient. Unfortunatly this is no longer the case. Our bodies defence systems need additional allies.
Most antioxidants come from Vegetables and fruit, this now creates a gap in our protection, because our foods have become significantly depleted in there content of antioxidants and supporting minerals as a result of mineral depletion in our soils, green harvesting, cold storage, foods that are highly processed, our poor food choices and food preparation.
At a time when we are under the heaviest attack from the environment around us, our natural defence systems are becoming overwhelmed and depleted. We must do all we can to rebuild our antioxidant systems with a healthy balanced diet, but too you need to learn how complete and balanced nutritional supplementation with Pharmacutical grade, high quality (cellular nutrition) supplements is our best hope in winning this war within and protecting our health.
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