The Flavanoids That We Don't Really Know About Are Quite Good For Health, Actually.
What's so good about them? Why are more people flocking towards them?
According to LiveScience,
Flavonoids are a diverse group of phytonutrients (plant chemicals) found in almost all fruits and vegetables. Along with carotenoids, they are responsible for the vivid colors in fruits and vegetables. Flavonoids are the largest group of phytonutrients, with more than 6,000 types. Some of the best-known flavonoids are quercetin and kaempferol.
In recent years, scientists have turned to various flavonoids to explain some of the health benefits associated with diets rich in fruits and vegetables, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Like other phytonutrients, flavonoids are powerful antioxidants with anti-inflammatory and immune system benefits. Diets rich in flavonoid-containing foods are sometimes associated with cancer, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular disease prevention. However, it is not yet clear whether the flavonoids themselves are responsible.
In that article, we can see a few things:
There are many types of phytonutrients, and flavonoids alone comprise more than 6000 types.
They are powerful antioxidants with anti-inflammatory and immune system benefits.
They may help to prevent cancer, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases.
So yes, having flavonoids in our diet may be helpful in promoting health.
Reduction and oxidation (or more commonly termed as redox) are fundamental electrochemical processes that govern how a cell in our body generates energy. That’s just an electrochemical principle that we’re looking at right here:
If the redox reactions are the fundamental operating principles of the cell, we’d better get them functioning properly.
Unfortunately, most people have no clue how it even works.
But the more health-conscious people out there will know terms such as “antioxidant”, “oxidative stress” and “free radicals”…
All of which mean nothing if the fundamental understanding of redox chemistry is lacking.
Redox chemistry aims to explain how spontaneously electrons can get transferred from one molecule to another.
That’s one of the crucial things that is happening in our cell as we’re generating useful biochemical energy from our food. The transfer of electrons via Coenzyme Q10, for instance:
One electron is so small and tiny that we can easily miss it.
But when the electron tranport chains in our 38 trillion cells go faulty, well… this tiny electron can make a significant difference between reducing molecular oxygen to water or to superoxide/hydrogen peroxide.
Because while water is relatively unreactive…
Superoxide and hydrogen peroxide aren’t. Well, technically they aren’t, but superxoide gets converted into hydrogen peroxide, and hydrogen peroxide gets decomposed down into hydroxyl radicals in the presence of iron, which is found in a commonly used chemical known as Fenton’s reagent.
They are the things that one would classify as “free radicals” or as “reactive oxygen species”. Superoxide and hydrogen peroxide are in the same category of “reactive oxygen species” as the epoxide, which I have discussed here:
So if our cells are already exhibiting signs of a malfunctioning electron transport chain, we’d be as likely to get cancer from there as we would be from consistently eating charred foods.
Getting the flavonoids into our diet may help to provide a source of antioxidants that can neutralise these reactive oxygen species and therefore perhaps aid in preventing the cancer, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases that the LiveScience article did touch upon (and which we do dread).
But we also do have to understand that the cells in our body are but responding to the various stimuli that we provide.
Get too stressed, for instance? The cell’s gonna produce more reactive oxygen species, especially in organs that do use up a ton of oxygen… such as in the brain.
So when the brain’s producing more hydrogen peroxide, it’s going to affect the function of the hair colour-producing melanocyte cells by reducing their activities or halting them completely.
When the melanocytes ain’t producing colour/pigmentation, the hair follicle will turn grey.
So would you wonder why chronically stressed people tend to get greying hair more easily and more quickly?
And of course, when these reactive oxygen species come out to play…
They can react with just about anything in the body, including all the proteins that are present.
So what would happen if they did react with the collagen proteins that provide the structural support for our skin?
Attack a structure and make it collapse…
The skin structure would collapse, and one would see wrinkles forming:
Again, it’s not rocket science, it’s just an application of redox chemistry that we’re seeing here.
Hence, if we do consume enough flavonoids that “work”, it would help to regulate the electron transport chains in our cells better.
But different flavonoids can do different things.
For example, quercetin can influence the cells in our body to produce more glutathione antioxidants, which then aids in quenching the formation of superoxide before they even become a threat.
In a sense, neutralise it before it even leaks out of the cell.
Whereas other typical antioxidant flavonoids would only tend to neutralise those reactive oxygen species that have already leaked out of the cell.
So while external (or exogeneous) antioxidants are key to neutralising whatever has leaked out, we still do need interal (or endogeneous) antioxidants to neutralise whatever is within the cell.
Otherwise things can get nasty internally!
To get a good balance of the external and internal antioxidants, a good variety of flavonoids may be necessary.
Do feel free to check out what kinds of flavonoids I use
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