August 22, 2009
THE FREE RADICAL THEORY – Dr. Deepak Chopra (ozone medicine)
THE FREE RADICAL THEORY – Dr. Deepak Chopra
In the 1950s, Dr. Denham Harman of the University of Nebraska theorized that free radicals are an important cause of aging at
the cellular level. This is believed to happen through a process called cross-linkage, a chemical reaction that locks up the
outer atomic shells of collagen. The cause of cross-linkage is thought to be the tendency of free radicals to bind
indiscriminately with many vital molecules in the body, including DNA.
Cross-linkage is only one example of the damage free radicals can inflict. They can supposedly split up molecules, garble
information in cells, clog cell membranes, promote cancerous mutations, and impair the function of the mitochondria (the
energy factories inside each cell). Free radicals will attack almost any molecule; the extent of the damage they do is so
wide that the free radical theory of aging has grown in popularity with each passing decade.
Paradoxically, free radicals are necessary to life. A free radical is really a temporary stopping-point leading from one
stable molecule to another. The normal life-span of such unstable particles is thousandths of a second; millions of these
fleeting molecules are emitted in every cell as it burns sugar with life-giving oxygen.
Why does the body produce free radicals? They are the natural product of any chemical reaction and they fit into the body’s
overall balance. In the immune system, white blood cells use free radicals in hydrogen peroxide to destroy invading bacteria
and viruses. In that role, the free radical’s tendency to latch onto anything in sight saves your life daily.
To protect itself from any damage, every cell produces enzymes to neutralize free radicals. These free radical scavengers
include superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and catalase. In recent times, people have been urged to take large
amounts of free radical scavengers in order to minimize cell damage. However, the eminent Japanese medical investigator Dr.
Yukie Niwa, himself a staunch proponent of the free radical theory, has demonstrated in the laboratory that dosing a culture
of cells with these products does little to decrease free radical production. It would be still less effective for a person
to swallow these scavengers, as most would be nullified by digestive juices long before they got to the cells they were meant
to protect.
The whole life extension enterprise misses the point. The damage caused by free radicals is secondary, not causal. In its
normal state, the body controls free radicals as a matter of course. Your body is not blindly fighting for its life against
“bad” chemicals; such a notion is far too simplistic. If you could view a cell as it produces its myriad free radicals and
myriad scavengers at the same time, you would see the two floating around in the same environment, not like loose cannons,
but closely monitored and controlled by the cell. Both are kept in balance and used as the cell requires, in serene harmony.
It has not been shown that older people have necessarily higher levels of free radicals in their cells or lower levels of
scavengers. Free radical damage is only one type of imbalance that can occur at the cellular level. If the body’s generative
powers are at optimum, disorder and chaos do not attack a cell.
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