Antioxidant Vitamins to Prevent Cancer
By Tanya Turner
Cancer can affect anybody, and despite all the cancer research there is still
no real cure for it. That is why it is so important for everybody, to take some
preventive measures against cancer. The best way to prevent cancer is to include
antioxidant vitamins into your everyday diet.
We all know how bad free radicals can be for our health. But what are they?
To put it simply, free radicals are particles that allow extra oxygen into human
cells, which causes the cells to break. Antioxidant vitamins can stop this distractive
process.
Foods high in antioxidant vitamins
All doctors recommend including a variety of fruits and vegetables into your
diet. These bring many benefits to your health, being low in fat and high in
fiber. But they are also very rich in antioxidants. Brightly colored vegetables
and fruits contain the most antioxidants. So including beetroot, carrots and
red capsicum in your everyday menu, would serve you a reasonable amount of antioxidants.
Here are foods richest in antioxidants
cherries,
blackberry,
strawberry,
blueberry,
red grape
walnuts
sunflower seeds
ginger
spices
green tea
coffee without milk
Common vitamins like Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Vitamin E are all powerful antioxidants,
so all fruits rich in these vitamins should be included. But there are many
more, for example red wine and red grape contains Reservatrol, an important
antioxidant. Another great antioxidant Flavonoid can be found in green tea.
So, the most sensible thing to do is to include a wide variety of different
fruits, vegetables and berries in your diet. Berries are particularly good,
because they all contain large quantities of antioxidant vitamins.
And there is one more source of antioxidants, a food that is usually on a bad
for you list - chocolate. But it has to be dark chocolate; milk chocolate
doesn't have antioxidant properties. When you eat chocolate, or any antioxidant
food, avoid drinking milk at the same time. Milk significantly reduces the effect
of antioxidants.
Antioxidant vitamin supplements
Getting vitamins and antioxidants from natural sources is of cause the best.
However, with our busy lives many people can't eat as much fresh produce as
they would like. Also bear in mind that when you buy vegetables and fruits during
winter months, their antioxidant value is very low. Most vitamins are easily
destroyed by light and storage, so tomatoes that are sold in a supermarket in
December give you almost no health benefits, even though in general a tomato
is considered a good source of antioxidants.
In this case antioxidant supplements can be beneficial. There are plenty of
vitamins and dietary supplements on the market. Some of them are specifically
marketed as antioxidant supplements others are just a variety of
vitamins. Many multivitamins contains 100% of all essential vitamins for your
health. Also remember, that Vitamin C is an antioxidant, and multivitamins usually
don't contain enough of Vitamin C. So it makes since to take additional Vitamin
C supplements.
Whether or not vitamin supplements are as good for you as antioxidants from
natural sources is debatable. Some doctors say that by taking antioxidant supplements
you can meet most of your antioxidant needs. Others argue that supplements are
not as beneficial as vitamins you get from food.
The problem is that vitamins in a pill are not as easily absorbed by our bodies
as nutrients we get from food. So eating mostly fast food and taking antioxidant
vitamin supplements to compensate is not such a good idea after all.
You can also get natural antioxidant supplements, like grape seed extract.
These are absorbed better, than synthetic vitamins.
Other benefits of antioxidants
Doctors emphasize the importance of antioxidants because of their ability to
prevent and fight cancer. But there are many other health benefits - antioxidants
boost your immune system, helping you feel and look young. If consumed regularly,
antioxidant vitamins have an amazing anti-aging effect.
About the Author Find out what antioxidant vitamins are essential to your health. Tanya Turner publishes an online magazine Antioxidants 4 Health
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