antioxidant vitamin

antioxidant vitamin

Nutrition Any vitamin–eg, beta carotene–provitamin A, ascorbic acid–vitamin C, and alpha-tocopherol–vitamin E with antioxidant activity. See Antioxidant, Antixoxidant therapy.

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Patient discussion about antioxidant vitamin.

Q. What are “antioxidants”? and what do they do? I’ve been hearing about antioxidants for quite some time now, they are supposedly help to keep us younger. What do they do and is it true?

A. When every biological system works- it creates oxidants. These are materials that are very active and they “look for” something to react with. So when you eat (an example) there are a lot of oxidants created. they move around in the colon and they usually react with colon cells, thus destroying them. This also happens while breathing, cell metabolism and a lot of biological processes. Antioxidants counteract these free oxidants and stop their harmful reaction.