Food filled with chemicals that counter the effect of oxygen could slow down the ageing process

You can avoid cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine, fats and all the other things that are said to be bad for you. But you can’t avoid oxygen – and this, some scientists say, is the chemical that ages you most surely. Oxygen is highly reactive, and that’s what makes it so useful in the body. It’s the vital element that helps body cells release energy from sugar.

But as it does, it lets slip a little pollutant called a free radical, or oxidant, the same thing that makes iron rust. Every day countless free radicals are let loose in the cell, and they tumble out banging into cell membranes, proteins and, crucially, the cell’s DNA, doing a little damage as they do. Some 10,000 free radicals strike the cell’s DNA every day.

 Some are intercepted by antioxidant chemicals, and when they do get through, the DNA manages to repair itself with special proteins. Eventually however, some scientists think, the DNA’s ability to fend off radicals and repair the damage becomes impaired.Sensing damage, the cell self-destructs, and so the ageing process gallops on.

So what if we used antioxidants – that is, chemicals that mopped up free radicals – to slow the process? It’s certainly worked in experiments on fruit flies and rats. But there’s no
evidence, yet, that it will work in humans. Vitamins C and E are antioxidants, but there seems no proof that vitamin supplements will make much difference.

For one thing, your body can absorb only so much of these vitamins; and for another, you get most of the basic antioxidants you need from your normal diet. It may be that there are antioxidant drugs you can take to boost your defenses against free radicals, but no one yet knows what they are, or what their effects might be.

No one really knows whether eating food rich in antioxidants will help defend against the damage done by free radicals in your body cells – or even if it’s worth defending against. But it certainly can’t do any harm to eat more of the fruit and vegetables that are rich in antioxidants.
• Fruit: raspberries, strawberries, red grapes, oranges, plums, cherries, blueberries, kiwis, pink grapefruit, raisins, prunes
• Vegetables: corn, onions, red peppers, spinach, auberge, sprouts, kale, broccoli, beetroot, alfalfa sprouts