by Jim Baker

What are antioxidants and why are they necessary for healthful nutrition? To understand their importance in nutrition, it is necessary to first answer the question, "What are free radicals?"

In simple terms, "free radicals" are oxygen atoms which have "lost" one of their orbiting electrons and have been converted into rogue scavengers with a ferocious appetite to replace that electron by stealing it from any other atom which they contact. In so doing, they convert the robbed atom into a "free radical" and set up a potential chain reaction which could create chaos in the orderly functions of the body, if allowed to proceed unchecked. Fortunately, our foods from plant sources contain substances called antioxidants which quench the appetite of the "free radicals" for electrons, by sacrificing themselves or by donating one of their own electrons, without being converted into "free radicals" themselves. These naturally occurring antioxidants are very numerous but the principal ones are Vitamin C, Vitamin E, beta-carotene and metals such as Zinc and Selenium.

Up to the early 1920's, our plant food was an adequate source of antioxidants so that "free radicals" did not pose a serious threat to health. Unfortunately, two factors have arisen which threaten this status quo. Our intensive farming method, using artificial chemical fertilizers, has led to a gradual depletion of the soil nutrients which plants must have to produce the naturally occurring antioxidants. Our plant foods are not as rich in antioxidants as they once were nor do they occupy the central position in our food chain they once did. (Note the increasing preponderance of "refined" foods in our diets.) The second factor is a vast increase in the burden of "free radicals" which our bodies have to contend with because of our exposure to environmental pollution such as air pollution from the use of fossil or atomic fuels, increased ultra violet light exposure due to ozone depletion, increased exposure to x-rays, increased exposure to cigarette smoke, both primary and secondary; the list grows daily. We are now facing a deficit in naturally occurring antioxidants. What we need is a supplementary new source of "free radical" fighters.

In the 1940's, a French scientist, Masquelier, was reading the journal of Jaques Cartier, the explorer of what is now French Canada. Cartier's crew were dying of scurvy, when an Indian suggested tea made of bark and needles of pine trees. It produced a remarkably quick cure. Masquelier suspected that there was more than Vitamin C at work in the brew and eventually identified plant polyphenols called procyanidins in the tea, which he dubbed Pygnogenol, and patented the extraction process. Grape seeds,a nuisance by-product of the French wine industry, proved to be the richest source of procyanidins.

These discoveries are of vital importance to everyone of every age group, because "free radicals" have been implicated as one causative, treatable factor in the onset of the degenerative diseases associated with aging. Such diverse conditions as wrinkles, varicose veins, "age" spots on the skin, atherosclerosis, cataract formation, osteoarthritis, degenerative eye diseases, dementias of aging and some cancers are all now thought to have a common causative factor in the accumulation, over the years, of the sequelae of "free radical" attacks.

It appears to be vital that we ensure, from an early age, that our nutritional intake contains a supplemental source of antioxidants to protect us from the cumulative effects of "free radical" attacks. One such supplemental source is Grape Seed Extract. Omega Biotech Corporation of Sidney, British Columbia, produces PROTOVIN^TM, a pure and potent extract from grape seeds. No less an authority than Dr. James Balch, in his recent book, The Super Anti-Oxidants: why they will change the face of health care in the 21st century, identifies PROTOVIN as perhaps the most potent of grape seed extracts because it is rich in mineral content as well as plant polyphenols. For more information on Omega Biotech, phone: (250) 655-6572, fax: (250) 655-6592, website: www.omegabiotech.com.

Bibliography of anti-oxidant references:

1. Hansen, C. Grape Seed Extract: Procyanidolic oligomers (PCO). Healing Wisdom Publications, Oct 1995. [Contains a very extensive bibliography regarding bioflavanoids and grape seed extract, including Masquelier's early papers]
2. Harman, D. "Free radical theory of aging: the free radical diseases." Age, 7:111-31, 1984.
3. Borek, C. "Aging gracefully with antioxidants." Nutrition Science News, Vol 3, 3:142-48, March 1998.
4. Borek, C. "Antioxidants and cancer." Science and Medicine, 4: 51-61, 1997.
5. Levin, B. "The oxidative origins of arthritis." Nutrition Science News, Vol 2, 12:598-604, Dec 1997.
6. Keli, S.O., et. al. "Dietary flavanoids, antioxidants vitamins and the incidence of stroke; the ZUTPHEN study." Arch Intern Med, 156: 637-42, 1995.
7. Rajman, I, et. al. "The oxidative hypothesis of atherosclerosis." Lancet, 334: 1363-64, 1994.
8. Beal, MF. "Aging, energy and oxidative stress in neurodegenerative diseases." Ann Neurol, 38: 356-66, 1995.
9. Perrig, W.J., et. al. "The relation between antioxidants and memory performance in the old and very old." J Am Geriatric Soc, 45: 718-24, 1997.
10. Lohr, J.B., et. al. "Free radical involvement in neuropsychiatric illnesses." Psychopharmacological Bull, 159-65, 1995.
11. Combs, G.F., et. al. The role of Selenium in nutrition. Academic Press, Orlando, Fl. 98-107 & 347-67, 1986.