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| Health hazard (Photo credits: www.chemicallabels.com) |
Think of your body as a football team, you don't have to know anything about football; all you need to know is that you have a home team and an opposing team. The football field is your life, from the moment of the first play, your birth, to the final goal, the end of your life. The opposing team, all the outside evading sources are attempting to cut your life short by stealing the ball and going in the opposite direction. I call this premature death due to disease or illness.
The opposing team is made up of some really big players, free-radicals and chronic inflammation. These players never get tired, and they will not at any time give up. From the moment, you are born, free-radicals enter your extremely young body with your very first breath and start their attack on your cells. Free-radicals are molecules or atoms that are missing an electron, they attack any cell they come in contact with and try to steal an electron from them. Free-radicals continue their attack until they succeed, in the process. They damage the healthy cells they are attacking.
Free-radicals are a part of life. They are in air and water pollution. They are in the processed foods we consume, free-radicals are also caused by traumas and injuries. Another source of free-radical damage comes from the medications we take in order to recover from illnesses; this particular free-radical damage from medications is called side-effects? There are times throughout our lives when we need to take medications to combat a serious illness, but we must keep in mind that we have to boost our immune system during the time we are on these needed medications.
This will minimize the side effect damage and aid in our long-term recovery. Every time you breathe, fresh free-radicals are entering your body and start playing for the opposing team. The next counteractive team member is chronic inflammation; scientists are calling this player a silent killer. Our bodies are amazing organisms; if it senses an injury or illness, it sends in a home team member, called inflammation, to aid in the defence of our body and help restore the area that is damaged.
This is where the game gets a little complicated; free-radicals cheat, they don't just damage a cell when they steal an electron, they actually mutate the cell or deform it, the damaged cell then becomes another free-radical; when the home teams healthy inflammation tries to go in and protect the currently unhealthy cell that the body senses as damaged, the unhealthy cell turns on the inflammation and attacks it stealing an electron. Once healthy inflammation cells become mutated or deformed themselves and become chronic inflammation attacking healthy tissues inside our bodies. Boy oh boy, this starts a whole chain of continuing events. However, remember this; the football game has two teams playing on the field.
You have to breathe everyday in order to live; now you know that every time you take a breath free-radicals are entering into your body and doing damage. You can, however, win the game if you take in large amounts of anti-oxidants to refresh your team players. Anti-oxidants are your really big players; they are molecules or atoms that have an extra electron that they will give to a free-radical. When this happens, the free-radical no longer plays on the opposing team, instead it begins to play for you. This is what I call building your team forces, your team force is your immune system. Your team works together but your immune system is your coach, if your immune system is strong, it can send in the needed players at the right time to fight any invaders whom your body may encounter. Nevertheless, you have to feed your immune system; it requires necessary minerals and vitamins as well as large doses of anti-oxidants everyday.
If you starve your immune system of the required nutrients, then the players on the field do not get the reinforcements they need to win. Most people start taking multi-vitamins when they get older, but parents should start their children on multi-vitamins as soon as possible and teach their children about nutrition starting at a very young age. People as young as 20 years of age are being diagnosed with diabetes in this country due to their poor eating habits. This is a very scary trend that is taking place. Much 30 years old had heart disease also due to their poor eating habits, gardening of their arteries? Scary!
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