Foods high in antioxidants are also high in thousands of other plant chemicals that have a multitude of physiologic effects on the body. It is the diversity of foods that matter most for good health, not their antioxidant content. This consensus is based on 5 experts answers from this question: Are foods with antioxidants in them really as important as they’re made out to be?
Antioxidants have been big news for many years. With promises of preventing and treating many diseases, it is no wonder that they get top billing when assessing the health merits of food. Antioxidants do serve important roles in our body. One of these is helping to mop up excess free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that can damage cells. They form when atoms or molecules gain or lose electrons. Free radicals can damage other molecules as it seeks out electrons to stabiles itself.
The body can cope with some free radicals, and even needs them to function effectively. However, the damage caused by an overabundance of free radicals over time may become irreversible and lead to certain diseases including heart disease and some cancers.
Free radicals are damaging
Having an imbalance of electrons makes the free radical unstable and places the body in a state of oxidative stress. Oxidation can be accelerated by stress, cigarette smoking, alcohol, too much sunlight, pollution and other factors. Oxidative stress and an excess of free radicals can lead to damage of:
- Nucleic acids leading to cancerous changes
- Membrane lipids and LDL-cholesterol in arteries
- Enzymes which repair cell structures
- Other proteins such as collagen
Antioxidants can short-circuit the damage caused by free radicals so it seems logical that the more antioxidants a person eats, the healthier they will be. Antioxidants scavenge free radicals from the body cells and prevent or reduce the damage caused by oxidation.
Learn more with Consensus AI Academic Search Engine:
✳️What role do antioxidants play in preventing cellular damage? ♾How does the body cope with free radicals, and what are the consequences of oxidative stress? 😩Can oxidative stress damage nucleic acids, leading to cancerous changes?Food is more than antioxidants
Antioxidants though are not just one molecule, they represent a property that is found in certain vitamins and minerals such as vitamins A, C and E, and the minerals copper, zinc and selenium. But there are thousands of other chemicals that have some potential antioxidant activity and these compounds are called polyphenols. There are over 8,000 different types of polyphenols found in fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, tea and coffee.
A brief reading about polyphenols on the Internet will bring up article after article highlighting that polyphenols are antioxidants and that explains their health benefits. Nutrition science though has well-and-truly moved on from using such simplistic language and concepts to describe how these thousands of polyphenols found in food work. They are much more than antioxidants. Focusing only on antioxidants or a single phytonutrient is like zeroing in on a section of a painting and seeing only the dots. You need to step back and see the bigger picture. It should instead be about polyphenols and their multitude of benefits and actions in the body such as:
- Regulating cell growth and death
- Slowing down cancer cell proliferation
- Altering glucose responses and insulin sensitivity
- Increasing activity of enzymes involved in removing harmful substances from the body
- Decreasing inflammation
For many years, food manufacturers promoted the antioxidant capacity of foods assessed by in vitro oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) testing. This test though can’t be extrapolated to in vivo effects. And furthermore, the ORAC database was removed from United States Department of Agriculture website in 2012 because of misuse in the promotion of food and supplements. So, the concept of antioxidant capacity of food is just a very small part in assessing the overall health merits of the food
And with antioxidants, more is not always better as Dr Cornelie Nienaber-Rousseau from North-West University noted. There is increasing evidence that antioxidants are more effective when obtained from whole foods, rather than isolated from food and presented in tablet form with some antioxidant supplements actually increase cancer risk. For instance, vitamin A as beta-carotene has been associated with a reduced risk of certain cancers, but an increase in others, such as lung cancer in smokers, if vitamin A is purified from foodstuffs.
The Takeaway
Because antioxidants are also needed for normal physiological functioning, foods containing them are important to include in our diets. But foods high in antioxidants are also high in thousands of other plant chemicals that have a multitude of physiologic effects on the body. Focus instead on eating a diversity of these plant foods and focus less on antioxidants.
Learn more with Consensus AI Academic Search Engine:
🌿What are polyphenols, and how do they contribute to overall health beyond their antioxidant properties? 👨🌾Are polyphenols found in a variety of plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, tea, and coffee? 🔄 How has the understanding of antioxidant capacity in foods evolved over the years? 💊Is it true that isolated antioxidant supplements can sometimes increase cancer risk? 🌽Does the effectiveness of antioxidants increase when obtained from whole foods rather than isolated supplements?