CHECKING ANTIOXIDENT LEVELS- Part IV of the How to Reduce Your 1 in 3 Chance of Cancer, by Melissa Stockman
Antioxidants fight free radicals. Different antioxidants perform different jobs. For example, vitamin C (an antioxidant) stops the chain reactions while vitamin E breaks the chain reactions. Studies have showed that Vitamin E lowers risk of CAD & increases life span. Since different antioxidants help differently, it’s important to ingest a wide variety of antioxidants. Different types of antioxidants include: carotenoids (yellow, orange or red pigments that color vegetables ie carrots), polyphenols, flavonoids…
It’s also important to get a baseline antioxidant level & periodic rechecks. There is now a 30 second non-invasive way to check your antioxidant level through the palm of your hand. This test uses Ramen spectroscopy- wave lengths of light bounce off the antioxidants in your hand & back to a computer. Therefore, there is no need for a needle to obtain blood or even a urine sample. The computer then calculates the wave length into a numeric value, gives you an instant value & will email you the results as well. Testing this way is more accurate than a urine test; Just because the antioxidants are in your urine, doesn’t mean that you are absorbing them. It just means that you are excreted them. This test is also more accurate than a blood test as the blood test will only check for a specific vitamin, not this important group of antioxidants called carotenoids. Just because a vitamin is in your blood or urine, does NOT mean that it’s absorbed into the tissue. Many doctors rarely order blood tests to check vitamin levels. If they do order, it’s usually just for 1 or 2 vitamins, which is not a good overall indicator of your overall antioxidant status. (You may have 1 vitamin level high because you only take that 1 vitamin.) Thus, the blood test is not a good indicator of overall antioxidant levels. This test is actually measuring it at the tissue level. Once you have this number, you can make life style changes to help raise it. You can now track your progress or lack there of. Before this test, there was no real accurate way to see if your lifestyle modifications were impacting your antioxidant level. Now you can! This test may also give you insight to see how weight & smoking affect your score (antioxidant level). Since many vitamins are excreted, totally unabsorbed by the body, this test may provide insight as to if you are truly absorbing your vitamins or not. Most practices do not offer this state of the art test yet.
As a Board Certified Adult & Pediatric Nurse Practitioner with my own testing device, you may want to attend our TimeToPlay.com Health Programs on the third Tuesday of every month. where I can check levels. Or you may contact me directly to arrange a private consult.
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