Free the Radicals
but not too many at a time
MODERATION / CHEMISTRY
The Inspiration
The day I wrote this, I came upon this article online while traveling to nowhere on my treadmill. It was a pretty balanced description and not full of the hype you might encounter in an online diet article or an infomercial. That is the kind of information I like. You will notice if you click there are not a lot of bright banners or flashing messages accompanying the article. I have generally found healthline.com to be reasonable and measured in almost everything I have ever evaluated on that site.
Later the same day, I received a notification from Amazon that one of my auto-refill orders for Vitamin B-12 was coming soon. Amazon, like all online merchandisers, loves to point out what else I might like. The only supplements I take are an adult multivitamin and a B-12 supplement to deal with my largely meatless diet. Many of the other supplements I “might want” wanted me to be sure that certain supplements were high in anti-oxidants. Fine, that is great to know, but I still am not interested in freeze-dried pulverized beets or garlic in a capsule. I pass!
The Setup
I believe that once a word is introduced to the everyday discussion, the word itself is often referred to constantly, and in many cases when the speaker doesn’t even know what it means! It does appear to me that just because someone doesn’t know what a word means does not impede saying it frequently.
I am sure that many of you enjoyed the show Seinfeld which created many memorable moments. The show seemed to layer on snippets of truth and observational humor. There are so many moments but in support of my thesis, here is a short video that I enjoyed from the show. I think you can substitute the word in the comedy sketch with an anti-oxidant and achieve a similar effect.
If you see advertising related to foods, you have been a victim of the hype. I set out to assess whether I was just imagining this or was just hyper-sensitive. I did a quick search and found this short article in the Atlantic Magazine FROM 2009! Perhaps I am not crazy after all. My case in point is anti-oxidants.
My recent focus on healthy behaviors including my diet has led me to notice how often some words appear when discussing healthy eating. I suspect that when people say “eat “A” because it is high in anti-oxidants is not well understood by most people and certainly not validated by the carnival barker selling the supplement. I just recently did a post titled Homeostasis. Having some background in chemistry, life on Earth can be reduced to some pretty basic concepts.
The Background Basics
Chemicals (like the ones our bodies are full of) are simply in a stable or unstable state. Unstable stuff wants to react and become stable. They do not care about what (cells, organs, etc) they react with, they just want to be stable. Another name for these unstable bits of chemistry is free radicals. We always have some in our bodies, that is the way of the world. Having too many consistently does damage to your cells, speeds aging, etcetera. Eating the wrong stuff, not getting enough sleep, or having a bad sunburn are all examples of things that contribute to free radical production. Free radicals bounce around in our bodies and because they are seeking a stable state, they can fly around and damage cells. Anti-oxidants are substances that stabilize and remove a lot of free radicals. Having too many or too few anti-oxidants is bad and that is why taking CRAZY doses of vitamins, supplements, or freeze-dried concentrated “superfoods” can be so silly and perhaps dangerous. Eating whole foods imposes natural limits because no one wants to just eat tubs of a single food for some hard-to-measure benefit. Much like the three little bears, we are looking for not too much, and not too little, but just right.
Chemistry is interesting in many ways. There are some basic forces at work in all chemistry. I have always been amazed by how much it controls our health with slight imbalances causing outsized problems. Here is another article from Healthline that captures this point very well. If you don’t want to read it, here are the highlights. Here are eight things that are good for you but you need to be careful to MODERATE. Interestingly, even things that are good for us are bad for us if we overdo them. Moderation in all things, including moderation. People get sick and can end up hospitalized by simply drinking water excessively. All of these things are fine just don’t overdo it I guess. A simpler way to state this is EVERYTHING in this world has a toxicity level.
Omega 3 & Fish Oil — good for you in many ways, take too much (easy to do in a supplement) and it becomes a blood thinner. Eat some fish and throw away the supplements or make sure they are very small! The cheapest sources of fish oil (probably end up in supplements) are unused parts of larger fish that accumulate mercury which is a neurotoxin. Eat a small piece of fish instead.
Tuna — I think many of us LOVE tuna whether a filet or canned. This article taught me that light tuna is 5x less likely to cause problems (mostly mercury) than white tuna. Never knew there was a difference. I’ll buy light instead of white from now on.
Cinnamon — often contains coumarin. Interesting that Ceylon cinnamon is less prone to causing problems with the same taste profile. That is amazing to me. You can learn a lot on a treadmill! How many of you remember the idiotic cinnamon challenge? I believe the gist of it was kids (thank you Facebook and YouTube) were seeing who could eat a teaspoon or tablespoon of cinnamon. For some, this can lead to a collapsed lung.
Nutmeg — we always add a bit to pancakes for a fun and rich taste. Not sure how someone might take too much unless they are using a supplement for some inane reason. Too much is a psychoactive and can cause seizures and hallucinations (today’s photo subtitle).
Coffee — Urging people to not drink coffee is a fool’s errand. I start my day with it. Too much or late in the day of course has the effects you might expect. The consequences for blood vessels and your heart are disconcerting.
Liver — pretty healthy but contains a crazy amount of Vitamin A & Copper which . Don’t overdo this for the same reason you shouldn’t swallow an old penny. Too much copper is hard to do unless you are taking excessive supplements. Dad used to enjoy liver and as a result us boys were stuck with no thank you portions occasionally. An interesting secondary effect of meat raising practices has been the shift to final fattening of cattle on feedlots with all you can eat corn. The corn poisons and decimates the livers of cows so the availability of liver has sharply declined. Slaughterhouses try to use the whole animal but the livers are of little or no value after final feedlot. Grass-fed cattle do not suffer the same affliction for their livers but alas do not marble the meat sufficiently for many people’s tastes.
Cruciferous Vegetables — very healthy as I’ve posted about previously. Too much leads to hyperthyroidism which can be VERY SERIOUS — very hard to do that unless you are liquifying them into smoothies a lot. If you eat them conventionally, you just get full and eat a bit of something else.
Brazil nuts — high in selenium which is essential. Too much selenium means hair loss and loss of memory. Don’t forget, eat 2 or 3 and have something else! Eating more than five at a sitting is probably too much.
Wow, I learned a bunch from that article! I am glad I still don’t like liver. Will probably buy Ceylon cinnamon from now on as I love the taste in many things. I bet they carry it at Costco but that rarely leads to moderation I am afraid. One of the most challenging aspects of government regulation is the pressure to make exceptions. Once we figured out that everything has toxicity, the rise of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stood up as a bulwark against unnecessary risks. The large exceptions to the rules we chose were cosmetics and supplements. I lack enough knowledge about the cosmetics industry but have a cousin with a real understanding. Perhaps one day, on a video call, I will sip my favorite beverage and ask him all about it.
Today’s post did not inspire any particular song for me so here’s a random choice that I like from WAY BACK in my youth. This song, in my mind, is my hope of what people will associate with my post. I aim to improve, entertain, and inform. I hope this song hits those marks. Till next time