Antioxidants Unveiled: The Truth Behind the Hype
Keeping up with the latest dietary trends and recommendations can be challenging, especially in a world flooded with misinformation and wellness influencers offering conflicting advice. One of the latest trends in health and wellness? Antioxidants.
Antioxidants have a wide range of positive effects, including boosting your immune system and preventing your cells from damage. Recently, there has been a lot of buzz from the health and wellness community about antioxidants’ potential ability to even prevent aging and disease.
But is it too good to be true? In order to see if antioxidants really live up to their “superhero” reputation, we have to first understand how they work.
According to Harvard Health, the term ‘antioxidants’ is really just a general term for compounds that can combat free radicals in the cells. Free radicals are unstable atoms that can cause damage to cells by ‘stealing’ electrons from other molecules, subsequently damaging them. Antioxidants have the unique ability to prevent cell damage by giving up their own electrons to neutralize the free radicals.
Because of antioxidants’ ability to neutralize free radicals, many researchers have wondered whether antioxidants might prevent certain diseases that at are associated with abnormally high levels of free radicals like cancer (according to the National Cancer Institute).
Additionally, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) compiled observational studies that found people with diets rich in fruits and vegetables (which have high levels of antioxidants) had, on average, lower risks of many diseases, including cancer, stroke, and cardiovascular disease.
Great! Antioxidants prevent disease!
Well, not really. Studies conducted by the NIH and other research organizations found that antioxidant supplements actually did not help to prevent disease. In fact, some studies even found supplements to increase the risk of some cancers and hemorrhagic stroke.
So… antioxidants are bad for you?
That’s not really the case either. More research is needed and is currently being conducted in order to assess the true effectiveness of antioxidants. The truth is that they’re likely not the answer to all of our health problems, but they’re probably still helpful in certain respects.
So, unfortunately, there’s not a clear cut answer to our question. However, no matter what diet or health craze is trending at the moment, there is always one key component to a healthy diet (backed by science), and that is making sure that your body gets the exercise and nutrients it needs to stay strong. While it sucks that there don’t seem to be any short cuts, a balanced lifestyle with lots of fruits, vegetables, and exercise is definitely your best bet to stay healthy and prevent disease.
Anya Warrier is an undergraduate student at Georgetown University studying Science, Technology, and International Affairs. She is especially interested in writing about inequalities in science and healthcare.