Captain Ahab’s BodyBlog

I recently read that antioxidants are harmful and increase one’s chances of dying and that taking a multivitamin can add to this dilemma. So I did a bit of researching and was overwhelmed by the amount of explanations about how and why certain supplements cause reactions and produce results in our bodies and I tended to get lost in all the scientific rhetoric and 13 to 21 letter words they use to describe the elements in question. What I wanted was a simple explanation on what it does and why I need it and recently I found just the explanation I was looking for on the subject of antioxidants and if a multivitamin would add to the problem. You may already know this if you had been paying attention during biology and chemistry classes but I will go ahead for those like me who were not. I had heard that free radicals were bad things and I needed antioxidants to fight them but I wanted a better explanation than just that. Well, lo and behold I came across a great one by a Dr. Paul Donohue and his explanation was simplified even to the point that I could understand it and so using some of his explanation and taking literary license I am going to add my own spin on it and hopefully this will help everyone understand antioxidants. Imagine that your body is a chemical factory. The chemical reactions that take place in every cell generate harmful by-products, called oxidants. Now outside of the body these little buggers (oxidants) produce rust on iron products. They are the nasty little things responsible for turning the pulp of your apple brown when you leave it sit for a couple of minutes and it is exposed to air. Now inside the body these oxidants do equally destructive things if they aren’t neutralized. So how do we neutralize them you ask? With antioxidants (bet you didn’t see that one coming). Imagine that we have our own fighter squadron of jet fighters going around day and night looking to do battle with and shoot down these little Kamikaze oxidants before they can crash into and destroy any of our vital organs or exposed and defenseless organisms. We have to supply our squadron of jet fighters with an arsenal of ammunition so they can kill the Kamikaze oxidants. We have a small stockpile of antioxidants that our bodies produce naturally but that would soon be depleted if we didn’t keep adding to it and so we must depend on the addition of antioxidants from our food (kind of like Canada depends on the USA in times of war). Examples of antioxidants that our bodies need and we get from a nutritious diet are vitamins A, C & E, beta carotene, lycopene, lutein, copper, zinc and manganese. The foods that are really filled with our needed antioxidants include blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, beans (red, kidney, pinto & black), avocados, apples, cherries, plums, oranges, artichokes, spinach, potatoes, broccoli, walnuts, pecans, almonds and my wife’s personal favorite dark chocolate. If your diet is lacking in a number of these you should add to your ammunition stockpile and add an antioxidant supplement to your regime. Overdosing on antioxidants can happen and that is when the arsenal kind of explodes and does internal damage which proves you can get too much of a good thing so you need to be careful or else our jet fighters will end up crashing and burning into our own bodies and causing as much damage as those nasty little kamikazes. High doses of beta carotene add to the risk of cancer that comes from smoking. Too high a dose of vitamins A & E can be detrimental to anyone. Antioxidants obtained from your diet (food) do not create trouble but antioxidants in pill form can be troublesome if taken in high doses for too long. As far as multivitamins go according to Dr. Paul Donohue we don’t have to worry we are not going to add to the problem by using one.