By Anna Ruth

Are you familiar with the Free Radical Theory of Aging? It has nothing to do with politics and is one of the most widely accepted theories around right now to explain the process of cellular and system degeneration. It’s about how your body acquires and produces unstable molecules called free radicals. Because nature seems to abhor instability, a molecule that is missing an electron will steal it from a nearby molecule, or atom.  This creates a new free radical or oxy-radical which in turn steals from another neighbor. If left unchecked, this process can create damage that begins at a cellular level and as these damaged cells accumulate, the systems that they are a part of start to break down.

Antioxidants are nature’s answer to free radicals. Antioxidants are molecules that can donate an electron to a free radical without becoming unstable themselves. They halt the chain reaction and prevent the damage.

You only need to look at the face of a 60 year old sun-worshipper to see how cellular damage ages us. We can see the skin, but we don’t see the accumulated damage to the liver or the heart or the brain. Meanwhile, arteries get clogged with cellular debris and joints become swollen with chronic inflammation- of damaged cells, all directly caused by free radicals.

So where do they come from? There are two main sources of free radicals – one source is the outside environment – think of pollution and cigarette smoke and the host of toxic substances that we inflict on our bodies. And then on the other hand there are the free radicals that are made by our own bodies.

We produce free radicals through four different mechanisms.

To create energy we use oxygen as fuel and generally convert it to water. But, like many other processes in nature the fuel doesn’t always burn as cleanly as we would like, resulting in damaged versions of the oxygen molecule.

Our body uses some oxidants to fight chronic infections, bacteria and parasites. Unfortunately, in the process other cells in our body are exposed and vulnerable to the free radicals. We fight fire with fire and sometimes manage to burn ourselves in the process. We also produce hydrogen peroxide- another free radical version of oxygen – when we metabolize some fatty acids.

Our bodies produce free radicals in millions of and millions of cells and do it almost constantly. Luckily we also have the ability to produce the remedy in the form of powerful free radical scavengers like CoEnzymeQ10 and Glutathione.

In an effort to combat the external sources of oxidants – like drugs, pesticides, cigarette smoke and other foreign and toxic chemicals our bodies creates an enzyme called Cytochrome P450. However, in calling up this necessary enzyme, we create a by-product, free radicals. The toxins damage us on their own, and we damage ourselves to fight them. It ages us.

If you’re interested in helping your body combat the damaging effects of free radicals, you need to support your supply of antioxidants. Some antioxidants, like Vitamins C and E can be supplemented and you simply cannot – in my opinion overestimate the importance of a good diet. Other antioxidants like Glutathione cannot be supplied as a supplement although you can nourish your body with the precursors -raw materials- to produce it yourself.

Anna Ruth writes about why MAXGXL is different from a glutathione supplement and a better alternative to helping boost your levels Glutathione the Master antioxidant