How Antioxidants Can Help Keep You Healthy
You’ve heard time and time again how eating certain foods will keep you healthy. You know that some fats are bad and that lean meat, fruits, whole grains, and veggies are good. But, do you know why?
Understanding how the fats, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and enzymes present in certain foods can:
- Help prevent illness and disease
- Reverse the damage caused by free radicals
- Motivate you to start choosing healthier foods
Fight Heart Disease by Choosing Your Fats Wisely
Heart disease is the number one killer of both women and men. This is a completely preventable situation in most cases, however. Staying away from certain fats and incorporating healthier fats into your diet can actually help avoid the risk of heart disease.
Saturated fats are found in most animal products and tropical oils such as palm kernel and coconut. They are known to raise “bad” cholesterol levels, also referred to as low-density lipoproteins (LDLs). They also increase the risk of atherosclerosis, which is a narrowing of the arteries due to a build up of plaque. Plaque can lead to high blood pressure, heart attack, and even stroke.
Trans fatty acids are even worse. They not only raise “bad” cholesterol, but they lower the amount of good cholesterol (HDL) in your body. This narrows arteries even more than saturated fats do because trans fats actually increase the production of plaque. Foods containing partially hydrogenated oils, such as margarine, shortening, and fast foods have high levels of trans fat.
So what if you’ve been eating saturated fats and trans fats for years? Don’t worry; there’s something you can do. By incorporating more unsaturated fats into your diet, you can lower your cholesterol and risk for heart disease.
Healthy Fats to Include
Two unsaturated fats you should include in your diet are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. Monounsaturated fats are found in olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, nuts, olives, and avocados. Polyunsaturated fats are in corn oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, flax oil and flax seeds, sunflower oil, walnuts, and fish.
In fact, the polyunsaturated fats in fish have been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by lowering triglycerides and blood pressure.
Fight Cancer and Aging with Antioxidants
Antioxidants are important to your health and skin. They fight the effects of free radicals. Free radicals are environmental factors such as pollution, UV rays, and more that can lead to cancer and increase the signs of aging. Getting an abundance of antioxidants in your diet is crucial.
Antioxidants come in many forms that include lutein, lycopene, selenium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Vitamin E.
What’s important is that you eat a wide variety of colorful fruits and veggies along with whole foods, so you are able to get enough of every form of antioxidant. Eating a wide range of whole, natural foods is the best way to do this.
Antioxidant-Rich Foods to Include in Your Diet
The Journal of the American Dietetic Association published a study that found that people who ate a salad each day had higher levels of lycopene, carotenoids, and vitamins C and E.
In addition, those that ate salad were less likely to eat a large meal afterwards, reducing the number of calories consumed. Be sure to watch the amount of dressing and choose those that contain good fat, such as olive oil.
Antioxidants are also healthy for your skin because they provide nutrients and enzymes. Nutrients contain vitamins and minerals and enzymes are proteins that keep the skin flexible, hydrated, and radiant.
In a 2010 study at the Gifu University Graduate School of Medicine, researchers found that women who had a high intake of green and yellow vegetables had less wrinkles than those that did not. To take advantage of these wrinkle-busting benefits, include these veggies in your diet:
- Broccoli
- Artichoke
- Yellow Squash
- Kale
In addition to antioxidants, it’s also important to get enough fat in your diet. Yes, fat. Essential fatty acids, also known as “good fats”, keep your skin cells healthy so that skin stays tight, smooth, and looking youthful. Good foods to get these essential fatty acids include:
- Nuts
- Olives
- Avocados
- Fish
Take pride in taking care of your body. When you do, it will perform better, lasts longer, and stay younger looking. If your lifestyle, the aging process, or pregnancy have left you with stubborn pockets of body fat that won’t respond to eating right and exercising, consider liposuction. It can put you on the fast track to a brand new body shape that you’ll love to look at.
If you do decide that liposuction is right for you, consider taking advantage of storing your fat by enrolling in ATGRAFT from American CryoStem. In fact, medical research has found that stem cells can help treat the effects of stroke, heart disease and many other conditions.
Cosmetically speaking, natural breast augmentation following a mastectomy is now one of the most preferred methods in breast reconstruction. Stored body fat can also be grafted to the face, hands, and buttocks for the ultimate in defying what Mother Nature gave you.
If you’re ready to look as young on the outside as you feel on the inside, your body fat can also be processed, the adult stem cells isolated, and the stem cell growth factors can be used in our proprietary blend of anti-aging stem cell skin care: U Autologous.
Find a Network Provider near you by calling us today at 1-866-519-3554.
Blog post written by John DiFolco.
Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20085665