Antioxidants

[eddymrsci]

They are responsible for eliminating free radicals that are responsible for causing many abnormalities, dysfunctions, and mutations in the body.

How do they do that? And if I were to conduct an experiment on this subject measuring and observing the antioxidants functions, how would I design such an experiment?

Thanks

 

[Starthane Xyzth]

Antioxidants cannot prevent the production of free radicals, as far as I know: they simply prevent their deleterious effects on the body, by reacting with and absorbing them. Some antioxidants are small inorganic molecules; some are enzymes, which act to quench dangerous free radical reactions. I imagine this is done by catalysing other, safe reactions which use up the free radicals.

http://www.antiaging-center.com/extract/freeradical.htm

I suppose that a chemical which combined preferentially with another chemical (as carbon monoxide combines with haemoglobin far more efficiently than oxygen does) should be called an oxidant, not an antioxidant.

Your experiment would require knowledge of a controllable reaction involving free radicals (which you would generate by exposing a mixed solution to ionizing radiation or an electric current). After a few control runs with fixed proportions and concentrations of the various solutes, over a set period of time, the average amount of product would allow you to measure the reaction rate. Then, in a series of further runs, you would introduce successively greater amounts of the antioxidant.

The reductions (if any) in your quantity of free-radical-reaction product would let you chart the antioxidant's effectiveness as a funtion of its concentration, relative to the reactants.

 

[eddymrsci]

I see... Thanks for the explanation man, and thanks for the site