Ever wonder, what are antioxidants? Here's what these compounds actually are, what they do for your health, and several foods high in antioxidants.
There are tons of buzzwords in the nutrition world, and antioxidants is definitely one of them. But what are antioxidants really, and how do they affect your body?
From ketchup to pomegranate juice, plenty of foods are known for containing antioxidants. You’ve probably heard that these compounds can do a lot for your health—they’ve been touted as doing everything from preventing heart disease to warding off cancer—but are they as helpful as people say? What are these supposedly magical compounds, exactly, and why is everyone making such a big deal out of them?
As with many things in the nutrition field, there’s a lot to unpack regarding antioxidants. And despite marketing claims singing their praises, they’re not exactly a panacea on your dinner plate. That doesn’t mean you should discount them, though: Antioxidants can bring a bunch of benefits with them.
Here’s what you need to know about the science behind how antioxidants work, what antioxidants can actually do for us, and how best to incorporate them into your diet.
Before talking about what an antioxidant is, it helps to understand what we mean by another wellness buzzword: free radical.
“Free radicals is a general term used for compounds that are highly reactive, which means that they can attach and bind to and ultimately damage normal [cells] in the body, such as DNA,” Edward Giovannucci, M.D., professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, tells SELF. To get a little more technical, free radicals are any molecules in your body that contain an unpaired electron, which makes them very unstable and keeps them looking for other compounds to bind to.
Your body generates free radicals during activities like digestion and vigorous exercise, as well as in response to things like UV light exposure, pollution, and smoking, Chwan-Li (Leslie) Shen, Ph.D., associate dean for research at Texas Tech University Health Sciences, tells SELF. Some other environmental toxins, such as ionizing radiation and certain metals, can cause abnormally high levels of free radicals to be produced in the body, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Free radicals aren’t necessarily bad on their own—and as natural byproducts of metabolic processes (like eating and exercising), some free radicals are okay. They can actually serve some important functions in the body, such as signaling between cells.
It’s when free radicals are produced in excess that they can become problematic. Because they are so reactive, free radicals can cause damage to cells through a process called oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is believed to be a factor in the development of a number of conditions such as cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, cataracts, and aging-related macular degeneration, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) at the National Institutes of Health.
This is where antioxidants come in. Antioxidants can help keep these free radicals in check. Known as free radical scavengers, according to the NCI, antioxidants work against that oxidative stress (anti-oxidative) by helping to neutralize free radicals and other molecules in your body that can damage cells and tissues, Mahdi Garelnabi, Ph.D., an associate professor of biomedical and nutrition sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, tells SELF. (They do this through a variety of mechanisms, such as by lending an electron to a free radical to make it less reactive or by binding to a substance in a way that prevents further reactions.)