Oxidation, inflammation, and toxicity are not pretty-sounding words. Even if you don't know their exact meaning in relation to human physiology, you get the idea that they have something to do with producing a state of less than optimal health. Well, that's true; they are conditions that you don't want in your body—at least not to the level of being out of control and harmful.
Oxidation is basically the chemical combination of another substance with oxygen in a process that typically causes some pretty dramatic changes in the oxidized substance. As an example, rusting of iron left out in the elements is oxidation at work. And what happens when metal rusts? Essentially, it becomes damaged to the extent that it loses its integrity, speeding its deterioration.
Inflammation is one of the first responses of the immune system to infection or irritation. You've probably experienced this condition, too, perhaps as a sprained ankle. It looks like swelling and redness; it feels like heat and pain. Inflammation is your body's way of healing because, physiologically, it's caused by an increase in blood flow with an influx of white blood cells and other beneficial chemical substances rushing to the rescue of the inflamed area. Inflammation can also be associated with chronic arthritis, asthma, and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis. Medically, inflammation can be treated with topical creams and reduced through ingestion of nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs).
Toxicity is the state of being poisonous. Poisons, or toxins, are found in nature, including food, and in manufactured commodities such as household cleaners, solvents, and chemical compounds. We are even exposed to toxins produced within our own bodies. These endotoxins are dealt with by the multitude of detoxification systems that are concentrated in the liver but are found throughout the body as well.
Toxins, as you might expect, can cause disease when introduced into body tissue, yet, interestingly, organisms, including humans, produce toxins. In fact, some creatures depend on toxins for survival. Poisonous snakes, for example, use their venom to kill or immobilize prey, and some plants produce cyanide as a protection from being eaten. Because an organism, including you, produces toxins as products or by-products of ordinary metabolism, your body must break down or excrete them before they build up to a dangerous level.
Oxidation, inflammation, and toxicity—metaphorically speaking—also occur within society. Our thinking and memory can become "rusty" and we lose our ability to think originally. The angry, heated, pained old brain becomes emotionally inflamed; it festers and swells and generates rage. Potentially, the old brain's noxious beliefs and toxic emotional responses may cause it to strike out with violence that society finds unattractive, if not unacceptable.
Fortunately, there is a physical remedy for this metaphorical situation: antioxidants, inflammation reducers, and detoxifiers that help our bodies heal and facilitate our psyche's advancement from a state of primordial reactivity to evolutionary, and enlightened, reasoning. Three Conditions You Don't Want to Have
ANTIOXIDANTS
Turn on the television, open a magazine, or listen to the radio, and you will no doubt be exposed to an advertisement extolling the virtues of some newly discovered exotic fruit juice that has the highest antioxidant content on the face of the earth. You may wonder: Why all the hype? What is the benefit of an antioxidant?
Antioxidants are any of various chemical substances, including beta-carotene, vitamin C, and vitamin E, that inhibits oxidation. In effect, antioxidants protect cells by neutralizing damage caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS), or free radicals. As mentioned before, free radicals are a by-product of the normal process of mitochondrial energy production. Under normal or healthy circumstances, antioxidants maintain a balance between the rate at which free radicals are produced and the rate at which they are eliminated.
However, free radicals cause oxidative damage to tissues, proteins, fat, and even nuclear DNA. In fact, tissue damage by free radicals is thought to underlie the process of aging. As we saw in Chapter 4, Denham Harman laid the groundwork for the antioxidant industry when he demonstrated that antioxidants "quench" free radicals in 1956. Then, in 1972, Harman recognized that mitochondria, which, ironically, are the actual source of free radicals, are also most at risk of damage from free radicals. Because the brain produces a prodigious amount of free radicals, it is their primary target, yet the brain lacks the level of antioxidant protection generated by other cells elsewhere in the body.
FREE RADICALS
Because of the powerfully damaging effects of free radicals, especially in regard to the brain, researchers are seeking better antioxidants that will provide brain cells with a measure of protection to stave off mitochondrial breakdown and, perhaps, enhance brain function as well. Studies are now appearing that clearly point an accusatory finger at free radicals for playing a pivotal role in brain aging. These studies show that, essentially, when a person begins to have too many "senior moments," clinicians apply a more scientific term, mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This phenomenon is generating considerable interest because MCI generally presages a more sinister pathology, Alzheimer's disease.
The relationship between MCI and free radicals was well described in a 2007 report by William Markesbery, a neurologist at the University of Kentucky, which demonstrated that cognitive function begins to decline well before the Alzheimer's stage and that the greater the oxidative damage to fat, protein, and even nuclear DNA, the greater the degree of mental impairment. Markesbery clearly identifies oxidative damage as a "therapeutic target to slow the progression or perhaps the onset of the disease."1
What a concept: to therapeutically target free radicals in an attempt to prevent Alzheimer's! What a refreshing approach published by the American Medical Association. Rather than simply describe some new drug therapy for a disease that's already well under way, here is a preventive medicine model, applied to brain health.
Markesbery goes on to state, "Better antioxidants and agents used in combination to upregulate defense mechanisms against oxidation will be required to neutralize the oxidative component of the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. It is most likely that to optimize these neuroprotective agents, they will have to be used in the presymptomatic phase of the disease."2 That last phrase means during the time of mild cognitive impairment or even before the appearance of symptoms. In other words, you are never too young to begin saving your mind for a healthier, longer "old age." And when we recognize that the risk of contracting Alzheimer's by living to be 85 years or longer is an astounding 50 percent, there are a lot of people who would be wise to consider that they are "presymptomatic" right now.
ORAL ANTIOXIDANTS
So, if in fact our brain tissue is being assaulted by free radicals, does it make sense to load up with antioxidants? To answer the question, let's go back to the mitochondria. In the normal process of producing energy, each mitochondrion produces hundreds, if not thousands, of free radical molecules each day. Multiple that by the ten million billion mitochondria in your brain and you come up with an unfathomable number—10 followed by 18 zeroes. So, you might
ask: Just how effective is a vitamin E capsule or a tablet of vitamin C when confronted by this onslaught of free radicals? Are one or two little pills once or twice a day up to the task?
When confronted by a free radical, an antioxidant sacrifices itself to oxidation in a one-to-one reaction. Thus, one molecule of vitamin C becomes oxidized by one free radical. Yes, this neutralizes the free radical, but it also terminates the vitamin C molecule. Can you imagine how much vitamin C or other oral antioxidant you would need to take in order to neutralize the astronomical number of ROS molecules generated by the body on a daily basis?
As you might expect, human physiology has developed its own biochemistry to deal with the free radical fire. Far from being entirely dependent on antioxidants from externally derived food sources, your cells have their own innate ability to generate antioxidant enzymes upon demand when environmental signals to the cell tell the nuclear DNA to do so. Fortunately, this innate and internal antioxidant system is far more powerful than any nutritional supplement. Whether the juice of some exotic berry or an extract from a previously unknown jungle plant, antioxidant supplements are limited by stoichiometric chemistry. The golden key to antioxidant protection lies in your nuclear DNA. Now let's learn how to activate the switch.