Well, hello, hello, guys, you're listening to Beauty Bites with Dr. K., Secrets of a Plastic Surgeon,

and it's time for a five-minute Friday.

I want to talk all about antioxidants and the age-fighting power of antioxidants.

So we use this term a lot, antioxidant. What the heck is really an antioxidant and why do we need it?

They are one of the most powerful anti-aging weapons that we have around and they're highly proven.

They're beneficial in terms of your overall health, anti-cancer effect,

metabolic effect, as well as anti-aging effect.

So antioxidants are necessary to fight free radical damage in

your body. Free radicals live in our bodies and the body is bombarded with free radicals all day,

every day from oxygen, from the sun, from the chemical reactions that occur in our bodies. And within your bodies, they're dormant free

radicals that seek out electrons to survive. The free radicals become activated by external sources,

like the sun, like pollution, like smoke, like oxidative molecules, oxygen, for example. And then they turn into

damaging free radicals that break down DNA and they break down cells and they cause cellular aging

process to occur. They break down your elastin, they break down your collagen. So when we take

antioxidants, we're fighting this process of oxidative

damage. I like to think of it kind of like you think of a newspaper in the driveway, getting yellow,

aged and cracked with the sun and the weather and the wind and all the elements hitting it. Well,

if I was to take antioxidant and protect that newspaper

or the analogy being protect skin,

you would not have that kind of weathering going on.

If you put a UV shield over your newspaper, for example.

Or with an apple, when we cut lemon

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