Most of the weight loss and weight management programs are all about calories and exercise. The calories are controlled by the amount we eat and what we eat. Frequently, maybe I should say most of the time, weight control is accomplished by just cutting back on how much we eat which means we are also cutting back on needed nutrients. Most of us in the United States of America, and I am sure this is also true of most people World wide, do not get sufficient nutrition in our diets whether we are gaining, losing, or just maintaining our weight. The reason for this lack is the way we store, ship, and deliver foods and even more the way we do not eat what we should.

Many people take a daily vitamin tablet and think that is sufficient to replace all they may be missing in their foods. While this is an excellent beginning vitamin tablets, even with minerals, will not replace all the missing nutrition. We may be getting enough nutrition to stay alive but not enough to stay healthy.

There is a long list of natural chemicals called "Phytonutrients" which are missing from most daily supplements. The prefix "Phyto" is from Greek meaning plant so they are nutrients provided by plants. The value of Phytonutrients is a fairly recent discovery but the fact that we need to eat our vegetables has been known for a long time. Phytonutrients do a lot for us including, but not limited to, provide us with antioxidants.

The word Antioxidant is used a lot today. Most people have no idea what an Antioxidant is or what they really do but almost everybody knows they are good for us and we should have them. To understand what an Antioxidant is just split the word into two parts "anti" and "oxidant." The prefix "anti" is from a Greek word which means opposite to, against, or instead of. Thus an Antioxidant must mean against oxidant. The next part of the word is "oxidant" which is a substance that supports the oxidation of another substance or an oxidizing agent. Salt will cause iron to rust and rust is iron-oxide thus we could say salt is the oxidant for iron.  Any chemical that would inhibit the salt form causing rust could be called an antioxidant.

Oxidation is necessary for survival while at the same time oxygen can also cause damage to living tissue by the process of oxidation. Oxidation is what happens when we burn calories but we do not want to burn tissue that should not be burning. Fat tissue is designed to release calories to be burned while muscle tissue is not. Some Antioxidants help the body not to burn the wrong tissue calories.

Oxygen can also create another problem. A molecule of Oxygen is made up of two Oxygen atoms electrically bound together. Sometimes the electrical bonds are broken by an outside influence such as ultraviolet light from the sun and the two atoms spin off by themselves. These atoms are not stable and are trying to link back into O2 (symbol for two oxygen atoms) but until it can find an other free radical (what a single oxygen atom is called) it may attach itself to another molecule which then upsets the balance of the molecule to which it attaches itself.

DNA is a very complex molecule and if that free radical attaches to a DNA molecule it can change it. Every cell in our bodies is suppose to have exactly the same DNA as all the other cells but because of the damage caused by the free radical a cell can assume a different DNA pattern. The body tries to defend itself against this by destroying the damaged cell.  Some antioxidants give the body the necessary chemicals to allow it to do this process.

If a cell with damaged DNA is allowed to divide it will produce a new cell with the same DNA structure. If both cells are allowed grow and divide the body will have 4 cells with the new DNA. Allowing this to continue unchecked it will cause an abnormal growth which can become cancer.

Some antioxidants destroy free radicals by uniting them into a stable molecular structure so they can pass through our bodies without causing damage.

The human body is designed to defend itself against damage and repair itself if it is damaged but it needs proper nutrition to effectively accomplish this process. Antioxidants, and there are several, are among these important nutrients.

So the answer to the questions "what are Antioxidants and why do we need them?" is: Antioxidants are chemicals that provide our bodies with the necessary elements to protect itself against damage caused by oxygen and we need them so our bodies can perform this vital process.