Amazing KAMANGI

An atom, the basic building block of everything including cells, consists of a nucleus with protons and neutrons, and pairs of electrons orbiting the electrically charged space. The behavior of the atom depends on the number of electrically charged particles. When, during a chemical reaction, an electron is pulled from one of the pairs of electrons of an oxygen molecule, that oxygen molecule with an unpaired electron becomes a free radical. This is so because it must seek out another electron to make a new pair, and may cause damage by pulling an electron from an otherwise normal cell of your body. That’s not all. The newly damaged molecule is now itself left with an unpaired electron and must scavenge an electron in what has now become a “cascade” of free-radical damage.

Anything that slows the oxidative process can be called an antioxidant. As the name implies, “anti”-“oxidants,” are nutrients that stop the oxidation of cells caused by free radicals, by traveling throughout the body to donate electrons, therefore quenching the desire for these free radicals to steal an electron from a cell with stable atoms. Dietary antioxidants include vitamin E and C, along with carotenoids(lipid-soluble plant pigments) and flavonoids (water soluble plant pigments). Antioxidants work together as a network, some extending the life of others, particularly Vitamins C and E, which are replenished by such substances as grapeseed extracts, carotenoids, and other flavonoids. They can reduce your risk of developing dozens of degenerative diseases, including heart disease and arthritis. Antioxidants can also help lower the aging process, preventing cataracts, and contributing to a longer and higher quality of life.

It is estimated that every cell in your body suffers in the neighborhood 10,000 free-radical “hits” per day, much of this damage being done to the genetic material in the cell. This worsens with age. Elderly persons have nine times the frequency of cell mutations as infants. Depending on the amount of antioxidants available and the level of exposure to chemicals, insufficient diet, immune suppression, etc., there can be some thousands and thousands of free-radical events taking place in one’s body at any given moment. So the existence of sufficient antioxidants, both made by the body, and derived from the diet, can mean the difference, quite explicitly, between health and disease.

Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity (ORAC) is a test-tube analysis that measures the total antioxidant power (the ability to neutralize oxygen-free-radicals) of foods and other chemical substances. In other words, ORAC testing is a means to measure how many oxygen radicals a specific food can absorb. Foods that score high in this type of antioxidant analysis may protect cells and their components from oxidative damage, suggest the latest studies of animals and human blood at the ARS Human Nutrition Research Center. (ARS is the chief scientific agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.). In the studies, eating plenty of high-ORAC foods:

- Raised the antioxidant power of human blood 10 to 25 percent - Prevented some loss of long-term memory and learning ability in middle-aged rats - Maintained the ability of brain cells in middle-aged rats to respond to a chemical stimulus-a function that normally decreases with age - Protected rats' tiny blood vessels--capillaries--against oxygen damage

Based on the evidence so far, some experts suggest that daily intake be increased to approximately 5,000 ORAC units to have a significant impact on plasma and tissue antioxidant capacity.

By the year 2050, nearly one-third of the U.S. population is expected to be over age 65. If further research supports these early findings, millions of aging people may be able to guard against many of the worst and most common diseases, simply by adding high-ORAC foods and antioxidant supplement to their diets!