How Antioxidants Protects -

Practical Implications and Warning

Scientific medicine looks for explanations of disease processes before attempting to find cures. 'try it and see' methods known as 'empirical treatments' are all very well and are certainly adopted if the evidence for their efficacy is strong enough. But until there is a provable explanation of how they work, there is always a lingering doubt, and this doubt is sometimes later found to have been justified. Now that so much is known about he role of free radicals in the production of disease damage, the stage is set for attempts at intervention to try to minimize this damage. Such intervention must obviously take the form of an attack on the free radicals, either by the use of various antioxidants or by other means.

Medical interest in this possibility is now intense and many trails are being conducted I must emphasize however, that the basic problem in heart attacks is the narrowing and obstruction of the coronary arteries. Everything possible must be done, from the earliest stage, to minimize the risk of such narrowing or blockage. Sine free radicals play an important role in causing the arterial disease that brings about this narrowing, we have one obvious line of approach. It would be totally wrong, however, on this account to deflect attention from the importance of the already established risk factors smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, lack of exercise and a diet high in saturated fats. Free radicals are not the whole story and anyone who thinks that a regular daily dose of vitamin E and vitamin C confers a license to continue the life of an overeating, overweight, cigarette smoking, physically idle couch potato would be very foolish indeed