Welcome to the first of a series of articles I shall be writing on Free radicals in what I hope is in a jargon free and easily understood format.

Free Radical is another “healthy living” buzz word or, phrase in this case, which has been a round for many years now; but it is understandably not fully understood by the majority of people. I say understandably because unless you are a health nut or guru, you are probably sick and fed up with all the hype which is out there. Having said that, The Free Radical is probably the main reason why we were all told to eat our veggies and fruit when we were kids.

Our grandparents had probably never heard of Free Radicals, but the information that fruit and veg were good for us was passed down through the generations and is still today the mantra of choice for caring parents and grandparents. In past generations it was all trial and error gleaned over generations of mishaps and successes. A lot can be learned from “old wives tales” as they are commonly called.

We are all exposed to free radicals as a normal part of living with no exceptions. It is simply a fact of life, but you will be pleased to know that it is not all doom and gloom. Our normal bodily functions naturally generate them and so does our immune system to help neutralize viruses and bacteria. Some free radicals, however, are generated by pollution, pesticides, smoking and radiation to name but a few.

Problems occur when the free radicals attack our healthy cells and cause them to weaken which then leaves them susceptible to health disorders. Interestingly, this cell damage has quite an alarming effect on our aging process. But given the right nutrients, our body is more than capable of controlling the damage process by offering a counterbalance which will effectively neutralize them.

So it’s nitty gritty time. What is a Free Radical? Basically it is an oxygen atom with an unpaired electron which means that there is a free electron in the outer orbit/s of an oxygen atom which is free to move to other atoms in our bodies. When it moves into the orbit of another atom it changes the structure of that atom causing biological change. "Free radicals are highly reactive molecules, or single atoms with unpaired electrons, looking for a mate. So they steal an electron from the first thing they encounter, perhaps a cell wall or a strand of DNA."

This molecular re-structuring has many adverse affects on the body, which will be discussed in later articles, but the one causing most concern at the moment is “accelerated aging”. When a rouge oxygen electron enters the orbit of an atom in the DNA, for example, the DNA’s structure is damaged leaving its ability to regenerate tissue cells seriously impaired. And the end result is that we age a lot faster than we normally do.

It is important to remember though that our bodies to require a certain amount of free radicals. and as I mentioned earlier the immune system does in fact produce free radicals. So I will end this first article with the quote: "Free Radicals Are As Good As They Are Bad". says Walter Bortz of Stanford University Medical School.