Antioxidant Health Drink Choice Made Easy

Antioxidant health drinks have become a trend and are so abundant and confusing that most people simply throw their hands in the air and grab a soft drink or energy drink (both of which are terribly harmful to the body). On other occasions they pick the first choice that is in front of them. The solution in making the best choice is to first have all the facts.

Let's begin with understanding what exactly an antioxidant is. During cellular metabolism there are byproducts that are resultant in the same fashion as a car emits exhaust. This auto exhaust is damaging to its environment as are the left over free radical components are to their environment (the body) by damaging the cells walls and possibly corrupting the DNA. Damaging the cell wall is bad enough as the cell can be destroyed but damaging the DNA is even worse.

The easiest example to illustrate this is to equate the process of replicating 300 billion cells daily to replace those that die with building a new home. One day the blueprints that are lying on the desk has coffee spilled on them by one of the contractors. Low and behold the next week the garage door is installed on the roof of the building. His inquiry with the door company yields the explanation of, "well, that is where the blueprints indicated to put the door".

The human body is the same way except the corrupted blue prints lead to abnormal cells that, through replication, spin out of proliferate at a speed that results in cancer. Free radical damage also leads to the inflammation that is responsible for (according to Time Magazine, Feb, 2005) Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, arthritis, heart disease, and many other maladies.

Antioxidants have properties that eradicate these free radicals. The magnitude of free radical damage in our day is one pass of a bus on a city street while you are breathing emits more free radicals into your lungs than your ancestors experienced in an entire lifetime. And that is why antioxidants are critically important to our health.

There are bizarre antioxidant claims made by antioxidant health drink companies than don't measure up. There is one company that markets its chocolate drinks and foods as an antioxidant choice. This is lunacy considering the damaging effects of all the sugar that may lead to insulin resistance or Type II diabetes. Another makes a claim that the Acai berry, discovered in Brazil and marketed in an expensive bottle, is a totally complete antioxidant source with wicked healing powers. It is important to know that, because of the evolutionary nature of the human DNA, the antioxidant compounds that exist in nature are from a wide variety of foods and accomplish differnt things.

One of the best known brain foods known are blueberries as they contain an antioxidant with protective qualities for the brain. Pomegranate has known antioxidant properties that positively impact cardiac blood flow, prostate protection, and erectile dysfunction.

When we are talking in terms of fruit juice as an antioxidant health drink there is a downside to them. The challenge is that the removal of the pulp from the fruit eliminates the barriers that slows sugar absorption into the bloodstream, thereby, allowing insulin spikes to happen. When choosing an antioxidant health drink you need to be sure to evaluate the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) factor. The USDA claims that 7000 ORAC units, daily, are necessary just to keep cancer at bay. The basic American diet yields approximately 1700. It is, therefore, crucial to remember to ingest the proper food and/or an antioxidant health drink everyday to minimize the damage.

The best overall purchase is a well rounded product that consists of many different antioxidant sources from herbs, berries, and other known natural foods.