Free Radicles and their impact on health

Our body is constantly exposed to a lot of toxins on daily basis, simple examples of these toxins include environmental pollutants, emotional stress, physical stress, pharmaceutical drugs, processed foods, heavy metals, smoke, exposure to toxic chemicals due to occupation or any other reason. All these toxins act as stress triggers for the body, and it is very important to understand that our body can react in different ways to these external or internal stress factors. One way of reaction to these stress factors is the over production of free radicles. Free radicles are nothing but type of unstable molecules which are normally produced as part of cell metabolism. These free radicles are in constant requirement of electrons in order to gain stability and so they will constant react with other constituents of cells like DNA, lipids, proteins to gain this electron and gain stability themselves. If these molecules are formed in excess, which can be triggered due to the stress factors explained above, these free radicals can increasingly affect other cell constituents and can damage these molecules and hence can also lead to cell death. This can trigger a chain of chemical reactions which can prove to be damaging and this type of reaction is call Oxidation and once the chain of these reactions is created, the body is said to be under "oxidative stress". These reactions can ultimately lead to cell damage, tissue damage and then organ damage. This in turn can lead to aging and serious diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other age-related disorders. Further, oxidative stress is also linked to chronic inflammation and this chronic inflammation can also be an underlying factor for ageing and development of age-related diseases This explains the need to maintain the levels of antioxidants in body. These antioxidants can prove very beneficial because they can donate the electrons that these free radicals need and hence make them stable and prevent the entire chain of chemical reactions and further prevent oxidative stress. A simple step of addition of anti-oxidants rich food in our daily diet or as a nutraceutical can help reduce ageing dramatically.