Antioxidants- Can You Overdo?

Are you taking antioxidants (Vitamin C, E, Beta-carotene, Pycnogenol, grapeseed extract, etc.) to prevent disease and aging? Antioxidants play an important role in human health and many people are realizing this and taking supplements accordingly. Research suggests that you should feel more energized by taking more antioxidants because they knock out energy-robbing free radicals. But is more of a good thing, better? Could you be taking too many antioxidants?
According to Denham Harman, M.D. PhD. the farther of the free radical theory of aging, the answer is yes. If you are noticing increasing fatigue and weakness, waking up feeling tired, you may be overdoing antioxidant supplementation. Every individual has an appropriate level of antioxidants that will best serve his or her health and depends on a number of factors in your life, from foods you eat to the amount of exercise you get. But one thing is certain: More is not necessarily better.
Free radicals, while often branded as the "villains" are not always the bad guys. Free radicals are sometimes the good guys. For example, white blood cells use free radicals to destroy bacteria and virus-infected cells. These free radicals prevent immediate death from infection. In addition, with the help of other free radicals, the liver's enzymes detoxify harmful chemicals. What contributes to disease and rapid aging are excessive free radicals produced by outside environmental influences. If you wipe out large numbers of good free radicals, you're handcuffing your body's immune system.
The key is to take enough antioxidants to stop the free radicals that are acting in destructive ways but not so many that you interfere with those that are essential to your body's good health.
Below are the Alliance for Aging Research's middle-range recommendations:
Vitamin E       100-140IU
Vitamin C       200-1,000mg
Beta-carotene 17,500-50,000IU



by Judy Burger