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Good
health is not a matter of luck or genetics …
it's more about wanting it. It's about knowing
what to eat, what habits to develop, and what
dietary supplements to consume to complement a
good diet. It's not about looking good. You can
have the perfect body or the prettiest face yet
still have relatively poor health. What we are
talking about is being healthy on the inside,
all the way to the cellular level. Healthy cells
will allow your body to protect itself from free
radicals, pathogens, chemicals and other dangerous
substances we come into contact with every day.
Most doctors believe that certain
conditions are symptoms of disease. Many scientists
and researchers believe that disease itself is
a symptom of a body that is not well nourished
and well maintained. A multitude of scientific
studies have demonstrated that many foods increase
the risk of certain degenerative diseases, while
others reduce these risks.
Free radicals (or oxidants) are
highly reactive forms of oxygen or nitrogen that
are produced by the body's metabolism, environmental
factors, inflammation and sometimes by infection.
Molecules are made up of atoms held together by
chemical bonds. Each chemical bond consists of
a pair of electrons. When a bond is broken, two
molecular fragments (or atoms) are left over,
each of which contains one unpaired electron.
These atoms are highly charged and highly unstable
because of the unpaired electron. These charged,
highly unstable, and very reactive particles are
known as free radicals.
Free radicals usually exist only
for a small fraction of a second and spend their
short lives racing around looking for molecules
to combine or react with. These reactions are
called oxidation, a process that is very similar
to the formation of rust on metal. When a free
radical combines with a molecule, it can damage
the molecule and consequently the cell it belongs
to. The damage can occur to cell membranes, proteins,
lipids (fats), or to the cell's DNA. It is this
damage to the cell's DNA that eventually leads
to many health problems. It is also believed that
free radicals cause damage to cells that results
in what we know as aging.
The body has about 1 trillion
cells, and each cell is estimated to receive around
10,000 free radical hits each day. Part of the
reason there are so many oxidative reactions is
that each reaction causes a chain reaction. Thus,
one free radical potentially leads to the creation
of hundreds of thousands of others. The good news
is that we have an antioxidant defense system
that protects us from this barrage of cellular
attacks. Antioxidants react with free radicals
and end the chain reactions that could lead to
cellular damage. If we did not have a good defense
mechanism, our body would break down very quickly.
Antioxidants are substances,
such as vitamins, minerals, coenzymes or phytochemicals,
that prevent, neutralize or eliminate free radicals.
They either prevent free radicals from forming
in the first place, protect cells from free radical
damage, or react with free radicals to inactivate
or eliminate them. They also boost our immune
system in general. It has been widely recognized
for some time now that antioxidants play an important
role in our overall health, helping the body reduce
the risk of developing certain conditions.
Antioxidants are found in most
fruits and vegetables. Some of them have more
of certain antioxidants than others, but they
are basically all found in nature's bounty. Most,
if not all, antioxidants are good for your health
in one way or another. One reason it is important
to get a good, balanced mix of the different kinds
of antioxidants is that some work better against
certain free radicals than others. The other reason
is that many of them help each other out. Some
boost the effectiveness of others, replenish them,
recycle them, prevent them from getting oxidized
themselves, or increase their bioavailable levels. |
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Many
health problems and premature death are more prevalent
today because we have turned our environment against
us. Most of the harmful substances that we come
into contact with every day were created and released
into our environment by man. These include chemicals
in our water, air, soil and in products we consume.
In order to cope with an ever-increasing world
population, we have had to find ways to reap more
food from the same surface area. We have to inject
animals with hormones, and we have to grow our
crops by spraying them with pesticides and give
them chemical fertilizers. We have to grow our
crops without crop rotation, which leads to them
being depleted of essential minerals. Our grains
are processed by bleaching and refining them,
and much of the fish we eat is contaminated with
heavy metals such as mercury from our increasingly
polluted oceans. Most of these "extras"
on our food can be very harmful to our health,
and the lack of certain minerals and vitamins
in our food weakens our immune systems so we are
unable to counteract them.
Originally, fruits,
vegetables and certain animals had all the nutrients
we needed to protect our cells. We got to where
we are because we evolved into a species that
was able to protect itself with the nutrients
found in foods that had existed on Earth for millions
of years. Our bodies would take what they needed
from these foods, and all was well. Unfortunately,
the artificial means that are being used to increase
food production have led to a loss in the nutritive
value that our ancestors received from their food.
It no longer has as many of the protective compounds
it once did. The processing that most food goes
through in developed countries strips out many
of the substances that our immune system needs
and adds others that are harmful to our health.
Even if today's
foods had all the nutrients they were meant to
have (and organic food* just might), they would
probably still not be enough. Our bodies developed
through evolution to be able to survive and to
defend themselves from our environment and free
radicals through the cancer antioxidants and other
substances found in our food. The problem is that
as technology has advanced in order to improve
our standard of living, the world has become ever
more polluted and has surrounded us with dangerous
substances everywhere. As we evolved, our bodies
were never expected to come into contact with
so many man-made substances.
For these reasons,
even if you follow the perfect diet, you are probably
not obtaining all the nutrients and antioxidants
that you need. This is the reason that dietary
supplements are becoming more and more important
every day. Antioxidants are the key to slowing
the aging process and many help protect certain
parts of the body. Do your homework and learn
which substances you need to consume and in which
doses. There is a vast difference between the
different brands of supplements available in the
market, so examine the labels with care. We are
sure that if you do, you will find that CanPrev
offers the best value in the market for each of
its products.
We sincerely believe
that all the nutritional support the majority
of us need can be obtained from three or four
of our products. There are few dietary supplements
that anyone could need, unless they suffer from
a particular health problem that can be addressed
by one of our other products.
*
Organic food refers to plants (vegetables, fruits,
grains, legumes, etc) and animals that are grown
or raised naturally, that is, without pesticides,
fertilizers, hormones, etc)
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