What is the importance of antioxidants, really?

Antioxidant: an enzyme or other organic substance, as vitamin E or beta carotene, that is capable of counteracting the damaging effects of oxidation in animal tissues. (the literal definiton from dictionary.com! =))
So, basically, it slows the aging process. Because quite literally, every breath we take brings us one step closer to death. (oxidize, absorbing oxygen) I guess that’s why they have the saying “Do not define your life as the number of breaths you take, but by the number of moments that take your breath away.” Because literally, moments like that could keep you around longer ;)

Antioxidants apparently are able to kill off Free Radicals in your system. These radicals are not Abby Hoffman nor Malcolm X. They are cancer-causing molecules. Antioxidants kill off cancer causing free radicals.

There is no case for eating a lot of them. All of the studies on antioxidants performed to date have shown no benefit, and in one study of Vitamin E there appeared to be some detrimental effects.

Listen to shilolo here. There have been no proven results in living systems of antioxidants. The theory is very solid, but that is only sure in an isolated, simple system, of which the body certainly is not. We really can’t be sure of what antioxidants do when consumed in the long term, and in short term it probably has very little effect one way or another.

Keep in mind, though, that this is an extremely hard experiment to run. You’d need to track an independent group of people’s eating habits for decades to be sure of results, and antioxidant’s being added to food is a very recent thing. Mouse and other trials have been done, but as shilolo said, they’re pretty uninspiring.

As a last note, keep in mind that ‘dietary supplements’, such as antioxidants, ‘energy’ supplements, and really anything they put in food and claims will help cure something or other, is not approved by the FDA, they can say whatever they want, they need no proof. If you can’t prove conclusively that it doesn’t do what they say, which is incredibly hard, they get to keep on saying it. So, yeah. Take those things with a grain of salt.

Eat plenty of fruit, vegetables and salads and occasionally some nuts or have a glass of wine.

Good question. I’ve been interested in the same thing for a while now.

Eating regular food is more important than eating antioxidants. It’s more humane. Have you ever seen how they treat antioxidants on the farm in those tiny little cages?