Without a doubt, one of the most highly-publicized dietary recommendations for boosting overall health and well-being is to make sure your daily intake of antioxidants is adequate. “Eat your fruits and vegetables,” we’ve all been told. Why? The proposed answer: antioxidant activity. Antioxidants are defined as “molecules such as some vitamins that block the action of activated oxygen molecules (free radicals) that can damage cells.”[i]  From proposed cancer-fighting abilities to their comparison to a “fountain of youth,” the hype surrounding antioxidants seems well-deserved.

   Epidemiologic observations demonstrate lower cancer rates in people whose diets are rich in fruits and vegetables. Since fruits and vegetables both contain high concentrations of antioxidants, this has lead to theory that these chemicals protect against the development of cancer and other diseases.[ii] While intense scientific investigation is currently dedicated to this topic, thus far, none of the large, well-designed studies have been able to show that dietary supplementation with extra antioxidants reduces the risk of developing cancer.[iii] However, because antioxidants combat free radical activity, and free radicals perform oxidative damage resulting in diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and even aging,[iv] the theoretical benefit of these mysterious chemicals can be explained scientifically.

   Here’s what happens: At regular levels, antioxidants roam around your body, patrolling against rogue chemicals called free radicals that smash into cellular walls, damage innocent DNA molecules, and promote aging, arthritis, cancer, cardiovascular disease, cataracts, diabetes, infection and some cases of Alzheimer’s disease—all the diseases of middle-to old-age resulting from oxidative stress.[v] However, from a public health perspective, it would be premature to make recommendations regarding antioxidant supplements and disease prevention until more data from ongoing studies becomes available. Not all of the various antioxidant chemicals have been found to play a role in the aforementioned diseases and there also may be a distinction between antioxidants found in supplements versus those derived from foods in the diet… which brings me to my next point.

   Can you have too much of a good thing? New studies show that at high concentrations in the body, antioxidants can turn into prooxidants and perform the exact activities you are trying to prevent by taking them in the first place! The role of antioxidants, just as with oxygen, is paradoxical. All the cells in our body need oxygen to live, yet oxygen eventually causes cellular damage, more specifically oxidative damage, which over time can lead to mutations such as cancer. Oxygen can be an example of a free radical, an “atomic or molecular species with unpaired electrons that are highly reactive and take part in chemical reactions that can cause cell destruction.”[vi] Antioxidants work by “disarming the free radicals of their menacing electrons”[vii] and converting them to less reactive substances.

   Antioxidant overdose? Although the exact mechanism by which antioxidants works has yet to be elucidated, we do know that balance is key. Free radicals do carry out essential processes in our body; we do not want to eradicate all of them. Hydrogen peroxide, for example, is prime example of a free radical. Without trace amounts of hydrogen peroxide and other free radicals floating through your blood, your body would not be able to fight bacteria and other harmful invaders. In addition, the “body’s ability to turn air and food into chemical energy depends on a chain reaction of free radicals.”[viii] While antioxidants can reduce oxidative stress, too many antioxidants can promote another deleterious condition: reductive stress! According to Dr. Ivor Benjamin of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, his study provides the “first bona example of the role that reductive stress can play in disease.”[ix] Dr. Benjamin’s team worked with mice carrying a human mutation linked to “so-called protein aggregation skeletal myopathies and cardiomyopathies, in which weakening skeletal and heart muscle contain clumps of proteins.” The mouse heart developed the same symptoms seen in human patients, including “heart enlargement, progressive heart failure, and early death. They further show that the animals’ hearts were under reductive stress, due to abundance of a natural antioxidant, glutathione.”[x] These results suggest that reductive stress might underlie other protein-aggregation diseases, as well, including Huntington’s disease.[xi] 

Confused? You shouldn’t be. A moderate dose of antioxidants, such as the amount derived from foods in your diet, can combat damaging free-radicals without ridding your body of the trace amount it needs to function.  Less likely overdose from diet, so eat more antioxidant-rich foods and lay off the mega-doses. CitySlim provides the following antioxidant-rich food list to help, adapted from cancer.gov:[xii] 

• Beta-carotene (in orange-colored foods): carrots, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, squash, apricots, pumpkins, mangoes.
• Lutein (and beta-carotene): green leafy vegetables: collard greens, spinach, kale.
• Lycopene: tomatoes, watermelon, guava, apricots, pink grapefruit, and blood orange. Approximately 85% of American dietary lycopene intake comes from tomatoes and tomato products.
• Selenium (a mineral, not antioxidant nutritent, but a component of antioxidant enzymes): rice and wheat, depending on selenium concentrations in soil. Also brazil nuts.
• Vitamin A: liver, sweet potatoes, carrots, milk, egg yolks, mozzarella cheese.
• Vitamin C: fruits and vegetables, cereals, beef, poultry, and fish
• Vitamin E: almonds, wheat germ, safflower, corn and soybean oils, mangos, nuts, broccoli.