Who should take a Lycopene Supplement and Why?
The answers to the following questions will tell you.
Do you smoke?
Are the environmental conditions at work or home not ideal? (smoke, noise, traffic, air pollution, air conditioning)
Do you often practice exhausting sports?
Do you often eat processed food?
Do you eat less than five portions of fresh fruit and vegetables per day?
Do you drink alcoholic beverages?
Could you imagine doing something now to help prevent in the future chronic diseases linked to ageing?
Do you think that you could change your lifestyle, e.g. stop smoking, and better diet etc., to improve your health?
If you answered yes to one or more of the above questions, then you are at major risk of free radical damage and an antioxidant supplement such as ACTIVATED LYCOPENE can be of benefit to you.
Why should I be concerned about Free radicals?
Free radicals are the main cause of ageing and degenerative diseases. They are unavoidably produced as a by-product of metabolism. They damage whatever body tissue they come into contact with. This damage occurs throughout the body, and accumulates with time. Initially, there are no signs or symptoms associated with free-radical damage. However, once the damage has accumulated enough, symptoms begin to manifest –ultimately resulting in chronic degenerative diseases associated with the ageing process -and premature death.
There are 12 types of free radicals: Alkoxyl Free Radicals, Hydrogen Peroxide Free Radicals, Hydroxyl Free Radicals, Peroxyl Free Radicals,Peroxynitrite Free Radicals, Phenoxy Free Radicals, Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid Free Radicals, Semiquinone Free Radicals, Singlet Oxygen Free Radicals, Sulfoxide Free Radicals, Superoxide Free Radicals, Tocopheroxyl Free Radicals.
Why do I need an Antioxidant?
When metals are exposed to air and moisture they rust. The oxygen from this exposure causes them to oxidize. If foods are exposed to oxygen as well, they go rancid. When this happens to living tissues we witness ageing, disease, inflammation and cancer. In other words this process not only occurs to metals and foods but also to the tissues within living bodies. To prevent foods and tissues from oxidizing, Nature has provided the antioxidants. Antioxidants prevent oxidation or the "rusting" of foods and living tissues.
What is an antioxidant?
First we must discuss oxidation which simply is combining with oxygen. The rusting of metal and the brown spoilage of fruit or butter going rancid are examples of oxidation, nature's natural recycling process decomposing materials to their basic elements. Modern medicine is now saying that most of our modern diseases are due to oxidation - we're slowly rusting out.
An antioxidant is a compound that prevents oxidation.
Oxygen is essential for basic cell functions in humans and most animals, as we all know. However, oxygen can also produce toxic substances and these highly reactive substances, called "free radicals" can combine with other molecules in the body, such as heavy metals or other foreign chemicals resulting in internal cellular destruction. These free radicals are unstable compounds with an unpaired or extra electron in their chemical make-up looking for an electron to become stable. The antioxidant offers this electron that the free radical is looking for rendering it stable and preventing it from becoming destructive to living cells.
Lycopene super antioxidant: The Human Anti Rust Product
Lycopene has been shown in numerous trials to be a super antioxidant.
Carotenoids such as Lycopene convert singlet state oxygen to its ground triplet state by absorbing and then dispersing excess excited state energy in the form of heat (Gerster HMA. The potential role of lycopene for human health. J Am Col Nutr.1997;16). Singlet oxygen can react with unsaturated compounds such as polyunsaturated fatty acids but may be intercepted by physical quenching.
Lycopene has an exceptionally high singlet oxygen quenching ability, twice that of beta-carotene. Thus, tissues maybe spared from oxidation by the in vivo oxidation of Lycopene.
Lycopene also interacts with other active oxygen species, such as hydrogen peroxide, which can generate the hydroxy radical known to induce strandscission in DNA and nitrogen dioxide, an air pollutant causing cell membrane damage (Bohm F, Trinkler JH, Truscott TG. Carotenoids protect against cell membrane damage by the nitrogen dioxide radical. Nature Med. 1995;1:98-997. ). These changes may promote DNA mutations conducive to tumor generation and membrane alterations that allow for proliferation and metastases.
Lycopene has been shown to be twice as effective as beta-carotene and 100 times more effective than vitamin E in counteracting harmful singlet oxygen radicals. (Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Nov 1, 1989; 274:532-8.)
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