Are you getting enough antioxidant foods?

As a clinical naturopath and medical nutritionist, I see so many patients to help them get enough antioxidants foods.

One of the major problems for most people is that you don’t get enough antioxidants in your diet. This leads to susceptibility to illness, disease and failure to maintain good health.

As your cells go about their normal daily functions, they produce free radicals’ reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen species. This is when a molecule has an unpaired electron in its outers orbit. Whilst your body needs some free radicals, an overload makes you sick, tied, and contributes to brain fog and damage (1).

Those free radicals are highly reactive and unstable and also contribute to diseases like including heart and liver disease, oral, stomach and esophageal cancer.

When the body becomes sick, and free radicals lead to illness the blood becomes too acid, which is a swing to the right on the PH scale. It may only be a fraction of the marker to the left, but that over acidity of the blood and tissue leads to oxidative stress and your body is simply not getting enough oxygen.

How do I get oxidative stress?

It happens to all of us when we are ill as the body is working overtime to fight disease and repair itself.

Stress and the stress of coping with physical and mental illness can mean that there is an overload of free radicals, particularly in the blood stream. This is not only due to stress but also partly the cause of those disorders.

Disease, toxin exposure and a range of medications (sometimes in drinking water) also cause oxidative stress (2). Those toxins include chemicals, pollutants and exposure to electromagnetic fields and radiation. All of which you are exposed to in your everyday life.

The major reason for oxidative stress and rouleaux in the blood (when red blood cells clump together) is a poor diet. Clumping red blood cells means their surface area is reduced so they carry less oxygen, and oxygen is the breath of life. Low oxygen transportation leads to disease.

 

Chronic hypoxia

From the first breath to the last breath, we check, ‘Is the person breathing?’ – ‘Do they have enough oxygen?’ Because if there is a lack of oxygen your tissue dies.

Bacteria generally hate oxygen. It’s a bactericide. Cancer hates oxygen and even builds a shell around itself to protect it from oxygen, which kills it.

Your brain wants 20% of all the oxygen your breath. It’s your mainframe, that not only stores your data, but also controls other parts of the body. It will allow the rest of your body to perish to preserve its own integrity and share of oxygen.

Chronic hypoxia due to oxidative stress produces tissue acidification which leads to tumorigensis (the development of tumors). Instead of being an oxygen rich environment it becomes saturated with CO2. It ends up as a vicious circle of free radicals, oxidative stress, hypoxia and CO2 saturation.

Whilst this CO2 saturation would normally signal the body to go into autocorrect and push oxygen rich blood to that area, when there’s a lack of antioxidants, the tissue can remain oxygen poor and too acidic, making it susceptible to disease. (3)

What do antioxidants do?

Antioxidants donate an electron to free radical molecules therefore stablising them, so they do not cause damage to your body.

There is a difference between dead food products and live foods. Many live plant-based foods are packed with antioxidants, so they are happy to donate an electron.

Dead food, particularly from animal-based products, is low in antioxidants along with most fats and oils.

Processed fast foods are also poor in antioxidants. They have been packed, eradiated, possibly exposed to mold so also have the opposite effect and contribute towards you getting sick

Should I change my diet?

That short and only answer is – ‘yes’

There is clear evidence that plant-based eaters have higher levels of antioxidants than carnivores or omnivores, particularly raw food vegans. (4)

Blood levels of vitamins C and E and beta-carotene were higher. One of the most notable markers was that glutathione (the body’s major detoxer) was higher and more active. Antioxidants were clearly higher in this way of eating, leading to the person being more disease resistant with shorter recover times from infection.

Not only was this dure to plant-based eating but also that the food was raw and had not been exposed to heat which can destroy and reduce the effectiveness of micronutrients like vitamins and minerals.

What you may have forgotten is that we are animals. We have teeth like cow’s not like tigers. We are meant to eat foods that are still alive, not heat damaged.

When have you ever seen a gorilla with a gas cooker?

 

What foods are rich in antioxidants?

• Pomegranates
• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Gogi berries
• Kale
• Spinach
• Red cabbage
• Artichokes
• Bean shoots
• Garlic, ginger, parsley, rosemary, turmeric
• Beetroot
• Okra
• Cocoa
• Citrus
• Garcinia
• Davidson’s plum
• Jaboticaba
• Passionfruit

Your diet must be balanced as well as including these foods.

Greens as antioxidants?

There’re not enough words to describe the benefits of greens. They are liver foods, what we call bitters, helping you detox and helping your body create all the chemicals that it needs.

Chlorophyll from greens, has been observed to reduce rouleaux in the blood by restoring high levels of oxygen transportation circulating the blood. This has been observed to happen with forty-five minutes and continues when the plant-based diet is continued.

Not only am I a medical nutritionist but also in the top 0.01% fitness rate of people at almost 70 years old.

Dr Tracie O’Keefe DCH, MD, is a Clinical Naturopath & Medical Nutritionist Orthomolecular Practitioner and Mental Health Professional at the Australian Health & Education Centre. You can visit in clinic or by Zoom appointments from anywhere in the world. For help with a naturopathic consultation and your dietary needs: Tel. 0403 398 808.

 

References:

(1) Siesjö, B. K., Agardh, C. D., & Bengtsson, F. (1989). Free radicals and brain damage. Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, 9(2), 125-132. https://doi.org/10.1038/jcbfm.1989.16

(2) Collier, R. (2012). Swallowing the pharmaceutical waters. CMAJ: Canadian Medical Association Journal, 184(4), E241-E242. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.109-4108

(3) Rivers, R. J., & Meininger, C. J. (2023). The tissue response to hypoxia: How therapeutic carbon dioxide moves the response toward homeostasis and away from instability. Medical Gas Research, 13(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.4103/2045-9912.10048965

(4) Rauma, A. L., Törrönen, R., Hänninen, O., Verhagen, H., & Mykkänen, H. (1995). Antioxidant status in long-term adherents to a strict uncooked vegan diet. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 62(6), 1221-1227. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/62.6.1221