Contents:
- Medical Video: Oxygen free radicals & cellular injury - causes, symptoms & pathology
- What are free radicals?
- What are the dangers of free radicals to the body?
- What can be done to prevent the danger of free radicals?
Medical Video: Oxygen free radicals & cellular injury - causes, symptoms & pathology
Free radicals can be found anywhere, even your body actually produces free radicals. This substance is harmful to the body and can cause various diseases, such as cancer. But, do you know if it's actually free radicals? What are the dangers of free radicals to the body and why can they be dangerous? See the explanation below.
What are free radicals?
Free radicals are molecules that contain unpaired electrons. Thus, this molecule can contribute or receive electrons from other molecules. This makes free radicals unstable and very reactive. Free radicals can attack various molecules in the body, such as lipids, nucleic acids, and proteins as the main targets. So, it can cause cell damage, protein, and DNA, as well as balance disorders in the body.
Your body can get free radicals from the surrounding environment, such as sun exposure, radiation, ozone, cigarette smoke, vehicle fumes, air pollution, industrial chemicals, food you eat, and drinks you drink. Not only that, your body actually produces free radicals from important metabolic processes in the body, from various chemical reactions that occur in the body. Like, when the body digests food, when you breathe, to exercise.
What are the dangers of free radicals to the body?
Free radicals that only have one electron will attract electrons from molecules in the body, so that the molecules turn into free radicals too. This makes free radicals increase in the body and cause cell damage.
Too much free radicals in the body can make the body experience oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is a condition where more free radicals in the body than antioxidant defenses (which can prevent cell damage from free radicals). This causes various cell damage in the body, such as lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.
This oxidative stress can then cause various diseases. Ranging from arthritis, heart disease, atherosclerosis, stroke, hypertension, gastric ulcer, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, cancer, to causing aging. Free radicals can damage the DNA code, so that new cells grow incorrectly and cause aging.
However, free radicals are also important for life. The body's ability to convert air and food into chemical energy depends on the chain reaction of free radicals. In addition, free radicals are an important part of the body's immune system, helping to attack foreign substances that enter the body.
What can be done to prevent the danger of free radicals?
Antioxidants are molecules in cells that can prevent free radicals from taking electrons, so free radicals do not cause cell damage. With the presence of antioxidants, the amount of free radicals in your body is controlled. Therefore, you need to increase the amount of antioxidants that enter the body to prevent the danger of free radicals.
Where can you get antioxidants? Actually your body produces antioxidants, but the amount is not enough to be able to compensate for the amount of free radicals in the body. So, you need to get antioxidants from outside sources.
You can get antioxidants from the consumption of various foods that contain antioxidants. The antioxidants in food are in the form of beta carotene (vitamin A), lutein, vitamin C, vitamin E, lycopene, and other phytonutrients, which you can get by eating lots of vegetables and fruits.
Examples of vegetables and fruits that contain antioxidants are tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, spinach, oranges, kiwi, berries, and other colored vegetables and fruit. In addition, you can also get antioxidants from nuts and green tea.
