With people’s preoccupation with beauty and anti-aging, a lot of attention is being focused on the importance of diet and nutrition to help achieve perfect skin and body. Nowadays, individuals are more conscious about what they put inside their mouths. For many, it is important that they get enough antioxidants, which are substance found in foods that can help slow down the damages caused by free radicals.

Free radicals are something that you really should stay away from. You see, every time your body uses up oxygen, it produces free radicals that wrecks havoc to your system, including damages to your bones and skin. The only things that can neutralize oxidative damages in your body are antioxidants, particularly Vitamins C and E, selenium, and beta-carotene from Vitamin A.

Some of the benefits of antioxidants include the prevention of degenerative eye disease, enhancement of cardiovascular health, protection against certain types of cancer, and even the improvement of the nervous system’s health. For people who are so concerned about aging and beautiful skin, it is important to note that antioxidants are also responsible for fighting premature aging and the prevention of the formation of wrinkles, fine lines and many other skin imperfections.

Lastly, experts also believe that antioxidants are vital in the improvement of the immune system. If you want your body to be strong in fighting against infections, be sure to take antioxidant supplements, especially if you are feel that you are not getting enough vitamins and minerals from the foods that you eat.

You can get beta-carotene from orange produce, including carrots, cantaloupes, peaches, and squash. Other rich sources of Vitamin A and carotenoids are broccoli, collard, sweet potatoes and apricots. Meanwhile, Vitamin E is found aplenty in nuts, whole grains and seeds. You can also get Vitamin E from vegetable oil and green leafy vegetables.

As for selenium, eating a lot of red meat, eggs, grains, chicken and shellfish would help you get this mineral that you need. Lastly, citrus fruits, such as limes and oranges, are rich in Vitamin C. Tomatoes, green leafy vegetables and strawberries are other sources of Vitamin C.

Although antioxidants are good for your body, it is best to take antioxidant supplements according to the advise of your physician. Much like other things, too much of these good substances can also be bad for your health. However, do not be afraid because you won’t die just because of overdose from antioxidants.

Aside from taking supplements and eating fruits and vegetables, you can also find skin care products that have ingredients containing antioxidants. Such products are also helpful in protecting your face and skin from the outside. One skin care cream that is made from all natural ingredients to help prevent wrinkles, fine lines and other signs of aging is Dermaxin. To know more about how Dermaxin can help you, just go to http://www.dermaxin.com.

This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s Renegade Roundtable, which can be found at http://www.RenegadeRoundtable.com. In this excerpt, Dr. J.E. Williams shares on how to boost your immune system to fight the flu and avoid diseases.
Renegade Water Secrets with Dr. J.E. Williams, a pioneer in integrative medicine, an educational leader in “green medicines” and an internationally known speaker and published author, including his latest book, “Viral Immunity.”Kevin: So, you mentioned a one size fits all kind of routine. What does that incorporate? What’s a protocol that would kind of fit that?Dr. Williams: Let me first give you a couple of questions on testing your viral immunity for your listeners. My book, “Viral Immunity,” is a classic, and you know, it’s a large book, and it covers many areas, and half of the book is on the ten steps for improving your viral immunity in a lot of detail. But in my other book on viruses, “Beating the Flu,” I simplified some of the aspects of that and transferred it over, and I have a short test in there. I’ll give your listeners a couple of questions out of there where if you get more than two or three colds or ordinary flu a year, your immunity might be a little bit low. If you have asthma or allergies or any lung disease, your immunity might be a little low. If you’re over fifty or under fifteen, your immunity might be low. If you don’t take any antioxidants,
particularly vitamin C and E, you don’t exercise at all or very little, then your immunity might be at risk. If you don’t eat, if you eat less than four to five servings of fruits and vegetables-I recommend ten to twelve or more a day- then your immunity can be at risk. If you don’t get good sleep, if you’re under stress, many things like that are going to. . .in other words, that pretty much covers most Americans, doesn’t it?Kevin: Yeah. [laughing] Even some of the healthy ones, right?Dr. Williams: Even some of the healthy ones. So then we want to take a look at the first step on that and that is to make sure that you’re really covered with, that your antioxidant base is covered because that builds your strong immune foundation. And so, you may not recall, but I think maybe a generation before some of the leaders in natural health like yourself came on the planet, perhaps, but Linus Pauling, who brought us the idea about vitamin C, was just ridiculed and laughed at and so forth. Everybody knows him, but I remember in some of my. . .I never met him, but some of my friends and colleagues worked with him, studied with him, traveled with him, and everything was just vitamin C, vitamin C, vitamin C with these people.
We found out that it really, he probably was extreme in that it didn’t do everything that we thought it was or should do, but it turned out that as we researched more, it actually does a lot. And that opened the door, created that paradigm of the importance of antioxidants in fighting disease and fighting viruses. And so getting enough vitamin C would be step number one.
And then the other antioxidants that go with that, particularly zinc, because zinc is a key component of many metabolic actions in the body and especially the immune system. Your thymus gland which is your key immune organ which is centered in your chest, and for those listeners who are on a spiritual path understand then the center of the chest is what we call the “heart chakra” or the “Anahata chakra,” and that you would think the color that goes with it would be red. But it’s not; it’s green like the emerald green of the Amazon rain forest. And the thymus gland is centered in the center of the chest in that area of the heart chakra. And that having a strong thymus gland depends on zinc.
So, vitamin C, zinc, selenium. We’ve come to know, not just by theory, but by real scientific fact that American soils and now, worldwide soils are very depleted in selenium and other trace minerals, and that selenium is a key anti- viral nutrient and a key antioxidant and helps to not only prevent cancer, in some cases it can treat cancer in high dosages. So, that’s really the part of that universal immune system, making sure that everything is on track. It’s getting enough of the nutrients that would be deficient in even a good diet and getting them up to the levels that would support the immune system.Kevin: And what about like synthetic vitamin C versus an extract from say, camu camu berry or acerola cherry or rose hips or something like that? What are your thoughts on that?Dr. Williams: Well, camu camu comes from upper Amazon and Peru, and every street vendor, sitting or squatting down has a little bucket full of camu camu, and you walk down the street and you buy a handful for a couple of pennies and chew on, suck on those. The acerola berry is another one, as you mentioned, that came from the Caribbean. So a lot of these small fruits that are in the tropical zone, especially equatorial tropical zone, because of the intense sunlight. . . Just imagine yourself sitting out all day long at the top of a tree soaking up the sun day after day after day. What would you look like? More like a prune.Kevin: Yeah.Dr. Williams: I’m sure we would burn, too, right? So, these fruits are exposed to the sun, and they don’t burn, they don’t dry up until their life cycle is over. They’re robust and they, because they have high antioxidant levels under the skin, right at the edge of the skin, that undoes all the damage that all that amount of sunlight causes. And so they’re very, very high in the antioxidants, vitamin C being one. And any time that you can get your nutrients and particularly your antioxidants through food, you’re by far better off.
We know that lower dosages, the correct form of the antioxidant in lower dosages through foods are more highly assumable and they’re more biologically active in the body. And that’s always the key. Is the molecule biologically active? And if it is, to what percentage of the molecule is the activity recognized by our body? Our selves can tell the difference. Technically, the pharmacist will say there’s no difference. It’s the same molecule. You can look at it. You can design it. It’s bioidentically the same. But the fact is, is that it’s not. Because there are other molecules that are associated with it in the foods, and the body recognizes that and utilizes it better because they are more biologically active. Now, the pharmaceutical forms, the pure forms, also have a purpose, and you just could never eat enough camu camu to get up to, say, a hundred or 250 grams of vitamin C a day or in a few hours to be used as a therapy. So, they both play a role. First would be through food, and second, would be through supplemental nutrition from the pharmaceutically produced product.Kevin: I sure that’s the same with the zinc and the selenium, too.Dr. Williams: Absolutely. With all, especially with antioxidants, but almost all nutrients would be the same. There’s a fair amount of research, and I’ve listened to presentations by the antioxidant experts, and I think it’s quite convincing, and the research is quite, it’s actually pretty simple research that shows that foods outperform in terms of their biological activity and their effects in the body than supplements.
Now really, the big question is this. Does a product produced by squeezing up a bunch of camu camu or acerola and making it into a network marketing company, does that give you the same benefit as the acerola berry? [laughter] Or the synthetic vitamin C? And I think that’s where we lose. And we take information from one thing, and we develop it into a marketable product, and we, at that point is where we start to lose ground very, very rapidly. It’s kind of like all of a sudden we’re in a canoe, theoretically that should be able to cross the river, but now it has holes in it, and we’re just about ready to go over the
waterfall.
You can’t win for losing, in other words, in that type of scenario. So, what we’re doing is trying to take that to a next step which is to take these substances, process them in the laboratory, in pharmaceutical type laboratories. All natural medicine, but the machinery and everything are highest quality, sterile environments, and then they’re made into extracts so we’re essentially removing water and cellulose and the shells and things like that that would be excreted material from the body anyway, and then retaining the complex molecule and the other things that are attached to that into an extract form and then reconstituting that into another juice base. But if you… and so that’s kind of the next level. And those are called medical foods or medical beverages and the FDA has a little bit of a hard time knowing what to do with them because they, in fact that the research shows that they’re highly biologically available, contain highly biologically available substance and that they can actually treat or prevent different diseases. So now, you know, it’s almost like in a category of a drug.Kevin: Right.Dr. Williams: And many companies, they can’t, they just can’t afford to advance those types of products along, but you’ll see more and more of those.Kevin: OK, I pay a lot more then a couple pennies for my camu camu extract. [laughs] I’ll tell you that.Dr. Williams: Yeah, exactly. But all of these little fruits and berries, that you know, I see all these companies and it reminds me, I can see them in my minds eye right now as we talk, and every time somebody mentions the different names of these companies I, “ah, yes,” I can remember the plant, they’re like friends to me, they’re just like people almost. They’re, you know, as you can recall a person’s face that you met and that you may run into all the time or maybe you had a significant encounter, but you never saw them again, but you’ll still remember them. I remember the plants like that, and the fruits like that and it’s a little nostalgic for me. You wonder, “Gee how did that happen? How did this big business come out of that little thing that we were researching?” And one of the main steps in the research that goes on, particularly with the tropical substances, is to discover what their, which antioxidants they have and which are the most common and what’s their percentages. And then they start comparing them against, they usually compare them against vitamin C or vitamin E. So they say, you know, has twice the activity of you know, as opposed to vitamin C or something.

Fresh fruits and vegetables may be your secret to lasting youth rather than a magic pill or potion! Carrots, spinach, and broccoli (among other vegetables) contain compounds known as antioxidants, which research suggests may be powerful weapons in the war against premature aging.
Dr. Jeffrey Blumberg, chief of the Antioxidant Research Lab at the Jean Mayer United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, believes the evidence is very compelling that as you increase your intake of certain antioxidants, you increase the benefits.
Antioxidants and Free Radicals:
The body’s use of oxygen creates byproducts called free radicals are formed. These oxygen molecules are missing an electron making them very unbalanced. Therefore, they steal electrons from healthy cells, causing damage to the victimized cell.
It is believed that this cell damage is cumulative. Scientists theorize this may lead to aging and disease. It’s possible that everything from cancer and heart disease to wrinkles and cataracts is the result of the action of free radicals. Environmental factors including exposure to radiation and tobacco smoke may also increase the number of free radicals in the body.
Compounds known as antioxidants prevent cell damage by deactivating free radicals. Vitamins E and C and beta carotene are the best known antioxidants, but there are many others, including selenium, lutein, and lycopene.
Positive Findings
A five year Chinese study that involved 30,000 participants demonstrated that the participants who received a daily supplementation of Vitamins E, selenium, and beta carotene had a 13% lower rate of cancer than those study participants who received a placebo.
A U.S. study of 1,795 nurses with a history of heart problems showed that the nurses who consumed larger amounts of Vitamins C and E and beta carotene showed the greatest cardiac improvement and reduced their chances of further heart damage.
The May 20, 1993 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine cited a study that reported a significant decrease in the incidence of coronary artery disease in men and women who consumed 100 international units (IU) of Vitamin E daily. This amount is about 6 times the current recommended daily intake for Vitamin E.
Inconclusive Findings:
The results a 4-1/2 year study of more than 9,500 men and women age 55 and older with risk factors for heart disease were reported in the January 2000 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine
Half of the study participants were given 400 IU of Vitamin E from natural sources, while the other participants received a placebo. During the term of the study, there was no significant difference in the number of cardiac events or cardiac deaths in either group.
You may be wondering why these studies contradict the results of other studies. The researchers themselves note that perhaps the study wasn’t long enough to demonstrate any effect. They also suggest that perhaps the findings were influenced because they used Vitamin E supplementation alone, without any other antioxidants. Vitamin E may require other factors to achieve its beneficial effect.
Too Much of a Good Thing?
In 1994, studies of beta-carotene in humans were stopped after results suggested that people at risk for cancer were at a greater risk after taking high doses of synthetic beta-carotene. Some critics of this study have pointed out the use of synthetic vs. natural.
Benefits of Dietary Changes Are Clear:
As pointed out by Dr. Blumberg, research is ongoing. He cites new studies showing the benefits of lesser known antioxidants such as lycopene, which may help reduce prostate cancer risk, and lutein, which is strongly associated with a decrease in age-related macular degeneration and prostate cancer.
Studies of high-risk groups, such as the nurses with heart disease, suggest the greatest benefit from increased consumption of antioxidants is realized by those at the greatest risk of disease. Consuming more antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables has well-documented benefits for improving health, apart from their antioxidant contents.
Are Supplements Necessary?
For many people, it is very difficult to consume enough fresh fruits and vegetables to receive any kind of benefit.
Few people consume the recommended daily intakes for all nutrients. Dr. Blumberg says as people grow older, they eat less. “As their appetite decreases, they don’t change how they eat, they just eat less.”
Instead of adding more fruits and vegetables to their diets, many older people eat smaller portions of the same kinds of foods they’ve eaten for years, which are often high in fats, starches, and sugars.
Smokers, heavy drinkers, people with impaired immune systems, and those on calorie-restricted diets may also have difficulty getting the nutrients they need from food alone. For these people in particular, supplements may be the only way for them to fulfill their nutrient needs.
In addition, Vitamin E is found in a limited number of foods, making it difficult to get enough of it from the average diet. Consuming more fruits and vegetables is the best way to get essential nutrients, a good multivitamin can fill in any nutrient gaps.
REFERENCES:
The heart outcomes prevention evaluation study investigators, vitamin E supplementation and cardiovascular events in high-risk women. New England Journal of Medicine. 2000;342: 154-160.
Luchsinger JA, Mayeux R. Dietary factors and Alzheimer’s disease. Lancet Neurol . 2004 Oct;3(10):579-87.
Meydani M. Nutrition interventions in aging and age-associated disease. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2001 Apr;928:226-35.
Miller ER III, Pastor-Barriuso R, Dalal D, Riemersma RA, Appel LJ, Guallar E. Meta-analysis: high-dosage vitamin E supplementation may increase all-cause mortality. Ann Intern Med. 2005 Jan 4;142(1):37-46.
Stanner SA, Hughes J, Kelly CN, Buttriss J. A review of the epidemiological evidence for the ‘antioxidant hypothesis’. Public Health Nutr. 2004 May;7(3):407-22.

Almost each moment, we are affected by some toxic harmful substance known as ‘free radicals.’ The substances which possess antioxidant properties may function to protect us against these harmful substances. There are many vitamins – vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene – a form of vitamin A, and vitamin B2 – that possess possible health-promoting benefits due to their antioxidant properties. This article sheds light on a clear understanding of oxidation process, functions of antioxidant vitamins, and their availability in natural substances. Vitamin C

Vitamin C works at cellular level. The role of this vitamin is quite significant to our health system in terms of its contribution to the production and resistance of bodily tissues. It plays major role in the process of collagen formation in the body. Vitamin C also affects our skin, teeth and bones significantly. Vitamin E

It acts against formation of free radicals and heavy metal poisoning. It offers support for combating against toxic substances, drugs and alcohols. Vitamin E offers protection for cardiac health by preventing LDL cholesterol oxidation process. Beta Carotene

Beta carotene is a specific form of vitamin A. It works against free radicals at cellular level. It reduces the speed of oxidation process significantly. If you depend on having diet rich in beta carotene levels, it has all the possibilities that you are having lesser health complications. Oxidation process in human body

Our system obtains its energy from the consumption of nutrients. During the consumption process, our body uses oxygen as the fuel to execute the process. Apart from that, oxygen is also used by our body to ensure protection against foreign elements, fight against diseases and to provide strength to our immune system. Due to this process, different molecular agents are developed as a result of byproducts and other metabolic processes. Oxidation refers to the process when these molecular agents react with body tissues. This is a natural process for energy production, but the byproduct of this process is not good for health. Free radicals are the inevitable byproducts of this oxidation process. These free radicals can profoundly affect human cells and damage healthy cells. Functions of Antioxidant Vitamins

Antioxidants counteract with the oxidation process. They are able to trim down the energy of the free radicals. They can terminate the development of free radicals in the first place. Apart from that, oxidation chain reaction is interrupted in the presence of antioxidants. It eventually minimizes the damages resulted from the interaction of free radicals.

Different scientific studies have proved the deadly effects of free radicals on human cells. These researches confirmed that free radicals may play one of the most significant roles promoting severe damages to the health system, like developing ageing, cancer and atherosclerosis. If you are become able to minimize exposure to free radicals and to maximize the intake of antioxidant vitamins and nutrients, you may be able to reduce the risk of health hazards resulting from free radicals.

There are no research studies so far that confirm that antioxidant vitamins are able to give specific protection against disease or they have the ability to treat any health complication. Increasing indications robustly suggest that antioxidant vitamins may function towards preventing diseases such as coronary heart disease, cancer and cataracts. Antioxidant vitamins help in aiding strengths to immune system and offer delaying in the ageing process. Natural Availability

Antioxidant vitamins are found naturally in many fruits and vegetables including nuts, grains and red meats. Vitamin C is abundant in citrus fruits such as strawberries, kiwi and others. Additionally, it is also common in cereals, beef, poultry, and fish products. Vitamin E or alpha-tocopherol is profuse in many oils including wheat germ, safflower, corn and soybean oils. It can also be found in mangoes, broccoli and almonds. Beta carotene is available primarily in foods that are orange in color. Examples may include mangoes, carrots, apricots, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, squash and cantaloupe. Vegetables like spinach, collard green and kale are also rich with vitamin beta carotene.