What is Oxidative Stress & How does it Affect the Mind and Body

Have you ever wondered why Apple starts to turn brown after you cut and leave it out? It is because of the oxygen in the air (free radicals) that the apple is rotted. Similarly, when the body is attacked or receives free radicals from different sources, our physical and mental health changes, harming muscles and brain cells. To prevent this from happening, our body needs antioxidants.

It is similar to lemon juice, which contains Vitamin C antioxidants that, when applied to the apple, help protect the cells and tissues from damage caused by oxidative stress. Is this analogy an eye-opener for you?

If yes, and if you want to know more about oxidative stress and how it harms our body and mind, this post is for you.

As we get busy, we often overlook the free radicals and the influence of oxidative stress on our overall health. Due to this, as we age, we fall prey to incurable neurodegenerative diseases. Considering you don’t want to suffer from these diseases.

In that case, it is time to explore oxidative stress, its effects, associated conditions, risk factors, prevention strategies, and antioxidants' role in maintaining our well-being.

What is Oxidative Stress?

Simply put, oxidative stress is an imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants in your body, which damages organs and tissues and results in various diseases. Living a healthy lifestyle can maintain this balance, and cellular damage can be prevented. This helps you live a healthy life without facing mental and physical issues, including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative problems.

Things to know about Oxidative Stress

The body’s natural process that produces free radicals from metabolic activities. An imbalance between antioxidants and free radicals causes it. Increased oxidative stress results in cellular damage, leading to several health issues and fast aging. Cardiovascular diseases, neurodegenerative disorders (like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's), cancer, diabetes, etc, are linked with oxidative stress.

Genetics, unhealthy eating, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, chronic stress, and an environment filled with toxins lead to oxidative stress.

To overcome these drawbacks, you can add antioxidants to your diet, live a healthy lifestyle, perform physical activities, manage stress, and get enough sleep. Moreover, you should take regular tests to determine the oxidative markers in your blood and take supplements that can help minimize oxidants.

What are Free Radicals?

Free radicals are byproducts of bodily metabolic processes and external factors like pollution, radiation, smoking, and tobacco. They are unpaired, so they steal electrons from other molecules, causing damage to DNA, protein, and cell membranes. The body can fight these free radicals and neutralize them, but when they are present in excessive amounts, oxidative stress is formed, leading to aging and various diseases.

To understand it better, let’s take an example.

Think of free radicals as tiny rats within the body looking for the missing piece of the puzzle (an unpaired electron) to complete the puzzle. To finish their jigsaw puzzle, they steal electrons from other molecules, causing a chain reaction that creates chaos in the normal functioning of the cells and tissues in the body, affecting mental and physical health.

To deal with disruption, antioxidants are removed from the body as they can donate electrons, which helps stabilize the free radicals without becoming reactive.

What are Antioxidants?

Simply put, they are the superheroes protecting cells in your body from the harmful effects of oxidative stress caused by free radicals.

Consider your body a crowded city and the cells as its buildings. Now, an evildoer named “Free Radical”, a graffiti artist enters the city and starts spraying paint with a bottle with a missing cap, the unpaired electron. This is when the city maintenance workers, the “Antioxidants,” come into play. They check the city for the damage caused by free radicals, fix it with paint, and cap the electrons they have. But the question is, how do they do it?

Donating Electrons & stopping chain reaction - Antioxidants are generous givers. When they see a cell being attacked by free radicals, they donate electrons to stabilize the situation. When they do this, they ensure that free radicals don’t create a chain reaction and prevent them from stealing electrons from other buildings (cells).

This way, the antioxidant protects the body from cellular damage and oxidative stress, thus safeguarding your health and reducing the risk of chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative disorders.

Importance of Antioxidants

By giving away electrons to stop chain reactions, antioxidants help the body function normally. Alongside, it offers the following benefits:

• Nullify harmful free radicals, preventing cellular damage.
• Protect cells, DNA, and immune cells from oxidative stress.
• Reduce the risk of chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer.
• Support eye health, skin health, and brain health.
• Slow down the aging process and promote overall well-being.
• Protects brain cells from oxidative damage.
• Contributes to overall well-being by promoting healthy cellular function and reducing the risk of chronic diseases.
• Help protect cellular components, including lipids, proteins, and DNA, from oxidative damage.
• It supports the immune system by protecting immune cells from oxidative damage.

Effects of Oxidative Stress on Mental & Physical Health

Oxidation is an ordinary and necessary process that takes place in your body. However, oxidative stress occurs when there’s an imbalance between free radical activity and antioxidant activity. Therefore, antioxidants are required to fight free radicals and keep the balance.

But when more free radicals are present, the balance kept by antioxidants is disrupted, causing the following issues:

Cellular Damage: Oxidative stress primarily affects cells, and as it increases in the body, it starts to damage cellular components like lipids, proteins, and DNA. This leads to mutations, impairs cellular function, and even triggers cell death.

Aging: Oxidative stress also fastens the aging process. As free radicals damage cells and tissues, the brain becomes more vulnerable to oxidative stress, and visible signs of aging, such as wrinkles and reduced skin elasticity, are witnessed. Also, the damage caused by oxidative stress over time contributes to age-related cognitive decline, resulting in difficulties with memory, problem-solving, and other cognitive functions.

Inflammation: Oxidative stress can promote inflammation in the brain. While it is a natural response to injury or infection, when it takes the form of chronic inflammation caused by oxidative stress, it contributes to brain tissue damage and the development of neurological disorders and various other diseases, including arthritis and cardiovascular conditions.

Neurodegenerative Diseases: Strongly connected to neurodegenerative diseases, oxidative stress damages brain cells, due to which motor and cognition skills are affected, leading to Alzheimer’s and other problems.

In these conditions, an accumulation of abnormal proteins and oxidative damage in the brain contributes to the progressive loss of brain function, and the characteristic symptoms of these diseases develop.

Blood-Brain Barrier Dysfunction: Oxidative stress allows harmful substances to enter the brain as the security layer is disrupted, causing brain inflammation and damage.

Neurotransmitter Imbalance: The chemical that helps in communication with neurons is imbalanced by oxidative stress, affecting mood and contributing to anxiety and depression.

Cancer: As oxidative stress causes DNA mutations, it increases the risk of progression of cancerous cells.

Cardiovascular Problems: It damages blood vessels, contributing to the increase in the risk factor for heart attacks and strokes.

Diabetes: As the free radicals attack the molecules, the blood sugar level is damaged, causing diabetes.

Respiratory Issues: In the lungs, oxidative stress can cause inflammation and damage lung tissues, contributing to respiratory conditions like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Also, when oxidative stress is increased, it weakens the immune system, making the body more vulnerable to infections and illnesses.

Conditions Linked to Oxidative Stress

Oxidative stress is a troublemaker that doesn’t come alone. It comes in a group, and this group affects other parts of the body, causing issues like:

• Cardiovascular diseases like atherosclerosis, hypertension, and coronary artery disease are also linked with oxidative stress.
• Diabetes is another disease that progresses due to oxidative stress. The stress leads to insulin resistance, impairs pancreatic beta cell function, and contributes to diabetic complications such as neuropathy, retinopathy, and nephropathy.
• Neurodegenerative Diseases: Conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are associated with oxidative stress. Oxidative damage to neurons and the accumulation of abnormal proteins contribute to the progression of these diseases.
• Cancer
• Chronic Inflammatory disorders
• Age-Related Eye Diseases
• Liver, Kidney, and Respiratory diseases - Liver conditions like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcoholic liver disease, development of kidney diseases, including chronic kidney disease (CKD) and diabetic nephropathy, lung conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are influenced by oxidative stress.
• Autoimmune diseases - Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and multiple sclerosis (MS)
• Obesity: Inflammation and excess fat tissue.
• Skin aging: Premature skin aging, wrinkles, age spots, and reduced skin elasticity.

Preventive Measures to Deal with Oxidative stress

To reduce the risk of oxidative stress, you must change your lifestyle and start eating healthy. You need to pay attention to what you eat and how you live. Here are some suggestions that can help you avoid being a victim of oxidative stress:

1. Eat a Balanced Diet: A diet rich in antioxidants, which includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, not only helps decrease oxidative stress but also helps stay healthy. Add food rich in vitamins such as C and E and minerals. This will help fight against oxidative stress.

2. Avoid Eating Processed Foods:  Fried food made of refined flour and sugar is unhealthy as it contains fats and additives. Hence, instead of consuming processed food, people should eat whole foods.

3. Stay Hydrated: Drinking adequate water is suggested to stay active and fit. When your body is hydrated, it detoxifies naturally, flushing out toxins.

4. Limit Alcohol Consumption: If you drink regularly, try to limit it, as drinking more contributes to oxidative stress.

5. Quit Smoking: Another source of free radicals and oxidative stress is smoking. Stop smoking if you want oxidative stress to be reduced.

6. Exercise Regularly: Regular physical activity with aerobic exercise and strength training can enhance the body's antioxidant defenses and reduce oxidative stress.

7. Manage Stress: Practice stress-reduction techniques such as meditation, deep breathing exercises, yoga, and mindfulness.

8. Get Adequate Sleep: Quality sleep is essential for cellular repair and helps reduce oxidative stress. You should sleep for 7-9 hours restfully at night.

9. Avoid Environmental Toxins: Minimize exposure to environmental pollutants like air purifiers and exposure to heavy metals whenever possible.

10. Use Sun Protection: Apply sunscreen and wear protective clothes, preventing yourself from being a victim of oxidative stress.

Oxidative Stress Is Manageable

Although a silent troublemaker affects both mental and physical health, there are ways in which you can manage oxidative stress. It is not something that you cannot manage.

To deal with it all you need to do is change your lifestyle, eat healthy, stay hydrated, consume proper minerals and vitamins, sleep well, exercise regularly, pay attention to your environment, and pay attention to your habits. Once you understand its mechanisms, taking proactive steps to protect brains and bodies from damaging effects will be easy.

So whenever possible eat fruits and vegetables rich in antioxidants and let the body take care of the rest. A healthy mind and body is required to fight any kind of stress be it work-related, oxidative or any. So, take care of yourself and your body will take care of you.