Free Radical Damage

By Rohanna Salom

To make it simple to understand the 'how and why' of the free radicals, oxidation and antioxidants in terms that are easy to understand for people not in medicine, we can think of something fresh as oppose to something that has gone stale or rancid.

In the chemical reactions that occur inside our bodies, there is something called the oxygen radical which are oxygen atoms not bound in pairs and therefore 'mating' with everything they encounter, causing in this way 'oxidative damage'.

Most all chemical reactions in the body use oxygen and produce water.  This is called the primary pathway of detoxification. When the oxygen does not produce water, it goes to the fat particles and could make the fat rancid. To get rid of this rancid fat inside ourselves the liver has a secondary pathway of detoxification.  Unfortunately this pathway is often too dirty with toxins. These toxins are all around us more and more these days because of the way we have created our lives lately, completely out of pace with nature. The process of detoxification is more complicated than just a 'liver cleanse' routine that we hear all the time.

These chemical reactions inside ourselves are necessary for energy.  There is always a waste left over from our actions and that waste is necessary and often used and recycled inside a healthy organism,  although when there is too much it becomes a problem, just as we have a problem with trash in the outside world.

So, these  'free radicals' are necessary for several functions in the body as we can see how often we have to 'destroy' 'change' or 'alter' things around us. Inside of the body, these free radicals also are a 'changing' force.  But when they become excessive, the destruction is then not handled properly by the tissues and we have instead of building, destruction of the tissues.

The play between anabolism and catabolism is very interesting in our lives.  We are always changing things and building others.  So, in our society we see how it is that we perform sometimes as 'free radicals' and how that is useful or negative.  Like for example, say that there is a group of people doing a project together and things are going well, then out of that growth a new person comes in and it brings with him/her a free radical energy and starts to 'hit' on others. Then the energy of the group could either improve or not. The project that they were doing could really get going or die.  Just because of one person's energy.

It is amazing.  That is why it is a serious responsibility for each one of us to monitor how we perform in society and why it is not good just to work only for our own personal desires.

So, inside our bodies we have all those elements and we can smell, as much as we can smell a rancid oil, we can smell a rancid body.  Like the smell of a baby, they smell delicious naturally, and then the smell of a sick person which we can barely stand. These are all signs that we better pay attention to if we want to keep our energy clean.

So, when to take antioxidants?  In this day of super pollution in the water, air and food causing  damage to the internal organs tissues,  I personally recommend a lot of antioxidants but with some control and knowledge.   There are several kinds and if you want we can give you a list of them and their uses.