What do Antioxidants do for the body? Can they stop a cold?

Answer 1

Antioxidants slow down the aging process a bit and reduce your chances of getting cancer because to some extent they destroy or immobilize the free radicals in our bodies that cause or speed up the aging process and can also cause or speed up the formation of cancerous cells.

Antioxidants cannot stop you getting a cold.

Answer 2

Antioxidants help remove items from the body that
could end up as the beginings of cancer

We can do a lot to stop a cold - by washing our hands
and taking vitamin C and Echinacea

all the best

Answer 3

An apple slice turns brown. Fish becomes rancid. A cut on your skin is raw and inflamed. All of these result from a natural process called oxidation. It happens to all cells in nature, including the ones in your body.

To help your body protect itself from the rigors of oxidation, Mother Nature provides thousands of different antioxidants in various amounts in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes. When your body needs to put up its best defense, especially true in today's environment, antioxidants are crucial to your health.

Here's how oxidation works. As oxygen interacts with cells of any type - an apple slice or, in your body, the cells lining your lungs or in a cut on your skin -- oxidation occurs. This produces some type of change in those cells. They may die, such as with rotting fruit. In the case of cut skin, dead cells are replaced in time by fresh, new cells, resulting in a healed cut.

This birth and death of cells in the body goes on continuously, 24 hours a day. It is a process that is necessary to keep the body healthy. "Oxidation is a very natural process that happens during normal cellular functions," researcher Jeffrey Blumberg, PhD, professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Boston, tells WebMD.

Yet there is a downside. "While the body metabolizes oxygen very efficiently, 1% or 2% of cells will get damaged in the process and turn into free radicals," he says.

"Free radicals" is a term often used to describe damaged cells that can be problematic. They are "free" because they are missing a critical molecule, which sends them on a rampage to pair with another molecule. "These molecules will rob any molecule to quench that need," Blumberg says.

Answer 4

they help keep bad stuff from forming and staying in your system. it keeps those free radicals down. wont help with a cold. be better off with vit c