We are all made up of trillions of cells. Clusters of cells for skin, clusters of cells for each of our organs etc. All of these cells require nutrients and energy in order to function optimally.

In my previous article I talked about Carbohydrates being your cells preferred source of energy.

I also gave the analogy of how I imagine my cells. I imagine them with tiny heads, little arms and legs and a mouth. When your cells need to eat they send messages to your brain telling you that you are hungry.

I want you to understand that nutrition is really about what is happening at a cellular level, and that there is a war going on in your body. It’s called ageing, and it’s either happening at a rate that we call graceful, or; at the speed of a bullet train.

In this article I am going to address these 2 things:

• - Why we age, get sick and get disease.
• - The top 10 things you can do to reduce all 3.

“Free Radical” is the term science gives to an unstable molecule that causes oxidative stress and slowly destroys our bodies.

As we breath in oxygen and exhale carbon-dioxide a byproduct of oxygen molecules splitting apart results in creating free radicals. These are angry little mites which race around the body and damage our cells.

While there is a small amount of benefit from them the main problem is the growing increase of things that contribute to this process of creating free radicals and a declining rate of things that neutralise the damaging effects of them.

The cause of aging is simply this – too many free radicals present and not enough antioxidants to neutralise.

So where do free radicals come from? They come from our environment and our food mainly. They can be intentionally created and unitentionally created.

Swallow this for a fact, each puff of a cigarette creates 100 trillion free radical molecules (1).

Although its an extreme example its the perfect way to illustrate the long term effects of excessive free radical damage. You just need to look at 2 people the same age; one who has smoked and one who hasn’t to see the devastating effects.

But what if you don’t smoke? Well, being exposed to environmental toxins on a daily basis can do similar damage. Humans have made, found or used over 50 million unique chemicals, the vast majority over the past few decades (2).

Even if you’re living in the country, your home is one of the biggest contributors to our toxic exposure (3).

So please be conscious of the products you are using, especially the products you apply directly to your skin. And I could not stress enough the importance of opening your windows to keep that fresh air flowing.

Now think about what’s ON and IN our food. I’ve seen pictures of hot house tomatoes being sprayed by people wearing gas masks. Scary! So watch your numbers, i.e artificial ingredients, and eat and grow organically where you can.

I’ve literally only scratched the surface on what’s causing free radical damage. I haven’t even mentioned stress, radiation from cell phone use, wifi etc, excessive exercise even causes more free radical damage.

The other side to this equation is this – if we’re getting inundated with free radical damage we need to make sure our body’s cells are being nutriented enough to stay protected.

The main sub group of nutrients that protect us are Vitamins (meaning vital for life) but more specifically it’s the antioxidants that do the real work. Which makes perfect sense if we think about free radical damage causing oxidative stress so antioxidants are anti oxidative stress.

So how do we make sure we’re getting enough antioxidants? (I haven’t forgotten about minerals. I know they’re important too but I’ll leave that for a future article) Antioxidants come from fruits and vegetables predominantly, also meats, dairy, whole grains and supplements.

So we must eat em. Our bodies can’t make them, except for glutathione, our bodies own natural antioxidant. But guess what’s required to make that? You guessed it, more antioxidants.

So antioxidants have gotta come in somehow and I can tell you now they ain’t coming in, in adequate levels in our diet.

According to the 2008/09 National Nutrition Survey only 50% of New Zealanders ate the recommended 5+ fruit and veges servings per day. The average American gets just 3 servings per day if you don’t count potatoes consumed as french fries.

The latest dietary guidelines call for 5 – 13 servings per day depending on one’s caloric intake. For a person who needs 2,000 calories a day to maintain weight and health, this translates into nine servings (4).

In 1992, the official report of the Rio Earth Summit concluded “there is deep concern over continuing major declines in the mineral values in farm and range soils throughout the world”. This statement was based on data showing that over the last 100 years, average mineral levels in agricultural soils had fallen worldwide – by 72 per cent in Europe, 76 per cent in Asia and 85 per cent in North America (5).

So if half of us weren’t even getting 5 servings per day, how many of us are getting 9-12?

If nutrients are not coming in through food, where are they coming from? The only other way is supplementation. My stance on supplementation is they’re an absolutely a must. It’s not just a personal belief of mine. It’s based on the weight of evidence. It’s not hard to see that our soils are depleted, so therefore our food is depleted. Then we take that depleted food and we’re not even consuming half of the bare minimum.

The top 10 things you can do to age gracefully, prevent sickness and disease.

1. Eat at least 7 servings of fresh vegetables every day – I know I’m pro supplementation but there are benefits we get from fresh whole plant foods that just cannot be put in a supplement.
2. Include at least 2 of your favourite fruits every day – Obviously for the antioxidant content but also as a great way to naturally sweeten your meals and snacks.
3. Where possible eat only organically grown produce.
4. Take a quality, high potency multivitamin and fish oil 2 times per day, everyday, for as long as you need oxygen. I recommend the ones from Usana Health Sciences. I take them myself and are the brand I trust to recommend to my clients.
5. Opt for chemical free skin care and personal care products. Usana manufacture an incredible range called Sense. I love it so much I actually purchased a whole extra pack for my friends and clients to try free for a week. If you’re interested let me know.
6. Quit smoking
7. Read ‘The Healthy Home’ by Dave Wentz and Dr Myron Wentz
8. Manage your stress levels to the point of being able to sleep a minimum of 7 hours straight every night.
9. Engage me as your nutrition coach to help you implement these things into your life. I’ll teach you and empower you to do it all for yourself in a way that you’ll love. Take the body type quiz on our website to engage me in that process.
10. Anything else? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Yours in Health

Tarryn Thompson.