Avocado Benefits :Antioxidants and free radicals: cancer, cataracts and ageing

Avocado Benefits :Antioxidants and free radicals: cancer, cataracts and ageing
 
The University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter for October, 1991, discusses the basic role of oxygen for human cellular energy and for life, but notes that an inevitable by-product of this activity is the formation of highly reactive "free radicals." These unstable troublemakers can affect various cell constituents: perhaps artery walls or LDL cholesterol advancing coronary heart disease; eye lens tissue causing cataracts; a critical gene leading to cancer; perhaps arthritis; or DNA (the genetic material) causing gradual deterioration and aging.

The human body has two main defenses against these free radicals: enzymes and other blood compounds that depend on trace minerals and good general nutrition and three potent antioxidants vitamins C, E, and beta carotene (vitamin A precursor). An article in the June, 1991, issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition indicates that only about 57% of nonsmokers may be getting enough vitamin C daily (for smokers the deficit is much greater). Men's Health (June, 1991) concluded that most of us are not getting enough vitamin E. A number of nutritionists have called for greater consumption of beta carotene.

As we have discussed, the avocado provides about twice as high a proportion of our daily needs for the above three antioxidant vitamins as its calorie proportion. Recall also that the avocado is rich in copper and iron, two mineral constituents of antioxidant enzymes. Nutritionists usually recommend that we get our needs met from basic food rather than from supplements. And while the risk of colon cancer, for example, has been associated with fat consumption, the Harvard Health Letter for March, 1991, reported that while meat indeed increased that risk sharply, there was no association with plant fat. Thus, eating avocados could be an enjoyable way to help protect ourselves against cancer, heart disease, arthritis, and eye cataracts; it may even delay the processes of aging.