What are Antioxidants and How are They Linked to the Immune System?
Antioxidants are the buzzword nowadays in health communities. Doctors, researchers, as well as health-conscious people, have realized the importance of antioxidants for maintaining good health. They’re also linked to improved immune system functions. Here is a brief discussion about what antioxidants are, how they work, and the role they play in improving immunity.
What Are Antioxidants?
Antioxidants are the molecules that help our body to fight free radicals released during various metabolic processes. Free radicals are compounds that cause harm to healthy tissues and increase your risk of diabetes, autoimmune disorders, heart diseases, and even cancer.
Our body possesses its own antioxidant defense mechanisms to keep these unstable molecules of free radicals in check and prevent oxidative stress or damage caused due to them.
Antioxidants, which are found in foods (especially fruits, vegetables, and whole grains), can support these mechanisms to help your body neutralize free radicals faster and more efficiently.
How Do Antioxidants Work?
Antioxidants help to neutralize free radicals in your body.
They basically work by destroying free radicals that are formed in the body constantly.
Without powerful antioxidants, free radicals would cause harm to the vital tissues, eventually leading to serious tissue damage and even death.
However, free radicals also support some functions essential for health. Hence, the body needs to maintain a balance of antioxidants and free radicals.
When the number of free radicals exceeds the number of antioxidants, it would lead to a state known as oxidative stress.
Chronic oxidative stress would result in damage to the DNA in cells and other important molecules in the body thus increasing your risk of cancer, diabetes, and other diseases. Antioxidants help to destroy free radicals thereby preventing oxidative stress. It would help protect the vital tissues against free radicals thereby maintaining and improving normal bodily functions.
What Role do Antioxidants Play in Immune System Functions?
Plant-based foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, are the best dietary sources of antioxidants.
Boost Immunity
A suboptimal level of antioxidants in the body is linked to impaired immune responses. It can make the immune system weaker and increase the patient’s susceptibility to infections.
Research studies have shown that they also play a vital role in supporting the functions of the immune system. They improve the body’s defenses against pathogens and reduce the risk of serious infective disorders.
Prevent Cancer
The activities of immune cells and antioxidants go hand in hand to protect healthy organs against cancerous changes.
Research studies have shown that antioxidants can complement the activities of immune cells by neutralizing free radicals that can initiate cancerous changes in healthy tissues. Immune cells, on the other hand, would prevent damage to the organs by regulating the production and release of pro-inflammatory substances like cytokines.
This would minimize chronic inflammation in the body and prevent the development of cancer.
Additionally, antioxidants would also control the harmful activities of free radicals thereby minimizing damage to enzymes, membranes, and DNA. This ability of antioxidants to destroy free radicals can protect the structural integrity of healthy cells.
Reduce Oxidant-Mediated Tissue Injury
Oxidant-mediated tissue injury is a common precursor to the development of several diseases including diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, leaky gut syndrome, cancer, and even depression.
The immune system is reliant on accurate cell-to-cell communication to protect the tissues against oxidant-mediated tissue injury. The signaling system involved can determine immune responsiveness.
However, oxidant-mediated tissue injuries can be particularly hazardous to the immune system, as phagocytic cells can produce reactive oxygen species as a part of the body’s defense mechanisms against infections.
These reactive oxygen species can reduce the accuracy of the cell-to-cell communication due to which the efficiency of the immune cells to prevent cellular damaged is reduced.
This marks the role of antioxidants to support the immune system functions and prevent oxidant-mediated tissue injury. Antioxidants would destroy free radicals and minimize oxidant-mediated tissue injury thereby restoring healthy immune system functions. It would also prevent impaired immune responses and support natural defense mechanisms.
The activities of antioxidants to support immune system functions could be enhanced further by using BioPro-Plus. BioPro-Plus is an immunity-modulating supplement formulated to help strengthen and regulate the functions of the immune cells.
The use of BioPro-Plus in combination with antioxidants from food sources or supplements would aid in restoring healthy bodily functions more effectively and help you avoid diseases linked to oxidative stress and immunological dysfunctions.
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