Ingredient

Sustenance Over Supplements

Here’s why, decade after decade, there’s still a buzz about antioxidants

BY LIANNA MATT MCLERNON

Flavonoids, tannins, phenols, lignans, carotenoids, lycopene, lutein, curcuminoids, oleocanthal, selenium, chlorogenic acid, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A and more … They all go under one broader category: antioxidants. Despite the immediate “ding” of recognition that might happen when you read or hear this word, research suggests that while antioxidants may help with inflammation, aging and chronic diseases, loading yourself up with antioxidant supplements doesn’t usually help.

THE BASICS

Before we can talk about what antioxidants do, first we have to talk about what they’re counterbalancing: free radicals. If you think back to your high school chemistry days, you probably learned about oxidation-reduction reactions, which involve losing or gaining electrons (which in turn can cause the joining or separating of molecules). Molecules called free radicals are highly oxidative, so they’re highly reactive with many of your body’s cells in ways that are sometimes detrimental.

In search of a molecule to give its electron to, free radicals can cause damage to cells and DNA. Unfortunately, you cannot avoid free radicals in your life: They’re in radiation like the sun’s ultraviolet rays or X-rays; they’re from toxins like cigarette smoke; they’re abundant in refined sugar. They’re from you—free radicals form when your body turns food into energy.

“Free radicals are like a pinball in a pinball machine racing around,” says Caroline Weeks, a registered dietitian and nutritionist with Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “As you hit the levers, the pinball haphazardly hits all the bells and whistles in the machine—that would be an analogy of what it does to our cells and our body. … Antioxidants are sort of the protective shield against those radicals; they help combat some of that damage and protect the body from that cellular damage that free radicals naturally do.”

While most of free radicals’ publicity showcases how they hurt us, it’s about balance. Free radicals have also been known to spark our immune system when infection occurs, and one study published in Nature in 2015 even indicated that they might help kill cancerous cells that are trying to metastasize. So, we don’t necessarily have to fret over all of the free radicals we’re creating. All we have to do is balance them, which conveniently means having a healthy lifestyle and diet.

SUPPLEMENTS DON’T CUT IT

Our own body produces an antioxidant, glutathione, but to mitigate the detrimental effects of too many free radicals, we need to get antioxidants from food sources. When the superfood trend hit, antioxidant density was one of the main measurements to determine foods were deemed super, but more often than not, those foods also contained a variety of