What is Oxidative Stress and How Is It Sabotaging Our Health?
Oxidative Stress is a phenomenon caused by the imbalance between the production and accumulation of free radicals or unstable molecules in our cells and not enough antioxidants to get rid of them.
So what exactly does that mean? What does this do to us? And why do we care?
Delving Deeper: The Science of Oxidative Stress
Our amazing bodies work hard to keep everything just right and in balance, like a thermostat adjusting to keep the temperature comfortable despite the external environment. Each cell works diligently on its unique tasks. As all the vital chemical reactions are going on in the cell, it creates a lot of unstable, runaway molecules. These are called free radicals.
These sneaky molecules bounce around the inside of the cell and steal essential electrons from other important molecules so that they themselves can be stable. This is called Oxidation.
Sneaky Free Radicals Stealing Our Health
We need some free radicals to stimulate important physiological processes, such as helping the immune system function properly and for initiating cell to cell communication. But when there are too many free radicals running around unchecked it causes cellular damage and inflammation. This leads to tissue and then organ damage. Ultimately this results in disease and aging. Ugh!!
The Invisible Enemy Attacking From The Outside In
Oh, By the way, if that’s not bad enough we need to talk about sources of free radicals bombarding us from the outside environment and our lifestyle.
Here is the short list:
Environmental Toxins: chemicals, pollution, herbicides, pesticides
Light/Radiation: UV and blue light, Xrays, EMFs
Consumables: cigarettes, alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs, refined sugar and starches, ultra-processed food
Exercise: too little or too much
Psychological stress
Our Internal Security System: The House Fire Alarm
To prevent tissue damage, our bodies deploy defenses: physical barriers to halt free radicals, enzymes that neutralize them, and antioxidants capable of supplying electrons where needed.
In the final battle, water and stable molecules are produced to be reused. Think of this like a house with many small fires that need to be put out. When free radicals and our enzyme and antioxidant system meet in confrontation, water is produced to put out the fires. Our bodies are marvelously designed.
But things can easily get out of whack when our front-line defense system is overwhelmed and there are not enough antioxidants to control the situation. Oxidative stress then sets in with inflammation and tissue damage and now we are in trouble.
The Invisible Enemy: Understanding the Impact of Oxidative Stress on Our Bodies.
What happens when you take a bite of an apple and leave it on the kitchen counter for a few days? What does it look like on Day 1, Day 5 or one week later? It will look brown soft and mushy. This is literally oxidative stress in an apple. Now think of all the 37 trillion cells in your body. Over time this oxidative stress is going to rear its ugly head somewhere. It just looks different on everyone.
What kind of symptoms do you see when all this is happening?
Fatigue
Brain fog or poor focus and concentration
Muscle Pain
Joint pain
Decreased vision
Headaches
Allergies
Difficulty sleeping
Susceptibility to infections
Shake off the Rust---The Oxidative Stress Theory of Aging
As our cells lose the ability to fight free radicals and oxidation over time (this decline starts in our 20’s) cells breakdown and aging sets in. Think about how rust accumulates on a car. Through the years of wear and tear, rust begins to show up, a little bit at a time until it eventually covers the entire thing.
The very act of living, eating and breathing, and interacting with our environment, along with our less-than-ideal lifestyle choices puts us face to face with the damaging effects of free radical damage, aging and disease. Oxidative stress which is intricately linked with inflammation, is associated with diabetes, cardiovascular and neuro-degenerative diseases as well as cancer. Essentially all chronic diseases have at their root these two processes.
Harnessing the Master Protein, Nrf2, for Combating Oxidative Stress
It is not all doom and gloom for protecting and restoring our fragile mortal bodies. Amazingly, our bodies, as mentioned, have the ability to fight oxidants and free radicals. It’s encoded directly into our DNA, specifically our genes. These antioxidant and detoxification enzymes just need to be turned on in order to be called into battle.
The master protein responsible for flipping the switches is called Nrf2. It sits passively in the cell membrane until a toxin, free radical or other threat enters the cell. When this occurs, Nrf2 is released, it storms into the nucleus of the cell and starts activating all the switches, turning on our protective and survival genes.
This cell signaling and communication pathway starts to slow down pretty significantly as we age and are bombarded by our environment, stress and poor lifestyle choices. But this is where is gets exciting. Nutrigenomics is the study of using plant-based ingredients to influence how our genes our expressed. Imagine, for a moment the possibility of using nutrition to reawaken and jump start our bodies ability to do what it's supposed to do.
We now know, it is not only possible but it is real and powerful. We will talk further in future blogs about this small but mighty protein, how we can activate it, it’s impact on the aging process and the possibilities for the future.
We do not have to know and understand every gene, protein and metabolite of the human body to be in awe of the natural inclination of our bodies to move toward healing and restoration.
Our focus should be directed towards recognizing the modifiable factors that disrupt or maintain equilibrium. And it is not a lot. A few simple things. In essence to get well, to age well and to be well, we must fix the cell.