Nutrition’s Double
Edged Sword
Walk into any supplement
store or read just about any health and fitness magazine and you will be
bombarded with messages about the health promoting, weight loss enhancing, life
extending power of antioxidants. The story of antioxidants, flying around your
body neutralizing disease-promoting free radicals and oxidized molecules is an
attractive one, but it isn’t that simple.
Benefits
Balance is important in
your body. Antioxidants help provide balance by neutralizing oxidized
molecules. Oxidation occurs in your body naturally but at an excelled rate due
to stress, exercise, inadequate sleep, and a poor diet.
Dangers
For a long time the message
was, the more antioxidants the better. However, research has shown us that too
many antioxidants can be a bad thing. A little stress and oxidation in your
life is good and allowing your body to fight it by itself, is a natural part of
your body keeping its “edge”.
For example, exercise produces
free radicals. They are generated as part of the process when your muscles are
broken down (as they naturally are during exercise). These free radicals
actually stimulate your body to begin rebuilding your muscle so it can come
back stronger than before. Taking in high levels of antioxidants after exercise
might actually hinder muscle growth and recovery!
The term antioxidants is
very broad and there are many different types of antioxidants that have
different functions and benefits. Let’s look at two that can specifically help
improve exercise performance, weight loss, and overall health
Flavonols
Foods that are high in
flavonols include: dark chocolate, apples, and tea.
The flavonols in dark
chocolate can help improve the health of your blood vessels and may be able to
decrease the rate in which you lose brain function as you age.
Apples are antioxidant
powerhouses with a large amount of their antioxidants being in their skin. The
antioxidants in apples can help fight cancer, heart disease, asthma, and
diabetes. An apple a day may truly keep the doctor away!
Green tea contains one of
the most famous antioxidants, EGCG. EGCG can upregulate the processes in your
body that burn fat, upwards of 17%! People who drink green tea also have lower
risks of many cancers. Researchers attribute most of this decrease in risk to
EGCG.
Anthocyanins
Anthocyanins are another
extremely popular group of antioxidants with powerful health effects.
Anthocyanins are found in dark red and purple foods like blueberries, pomegranates,
and cherries.
Blueberries are well known
for their antioxidant prowess which can help with brain, eye, and blood vessel
health. Wild blueberries have 2x the antioxidants. Perfect if you are controlling calories but
don’t want to sacrifice the antioxidants.
Pomegranates, with a
massive ad budget, have made their antioxidant status part of modern culture.
Unfortunately the benefits of pomegranates have been overstated, as they won’t
save your life. But, they will improve blood vessel health and help prevent
excessive stickiness of the platelets in your blood.
Cherries have anthocyanins
and have been shown to be strong enough to inhibit key enzymes in the body that
regulate inflammation and inflammatory pain. These are the same enzymes that
drugs like Celebrex act on. Research has shown that cherries may also be able
to help fight jet lag.
Supplement?
If you eat a well-rounded
diet, there is probably no need to supplement with additional antioxidants. In
certain cases, if you are looking to elicit a specific effect, then
supplementing may be warranted so that you can get enough of a certain
antioxidant in the right dose. An example of this would be twice daily
supplementation with quercetin to boost exercise performance.
