As most of us were probably told in high school chemistry class (and promptly forgot once the exam was over), free radicals are molecules, or groups of atoms, in which one of the atoms in the group has an “unpaired” electron in its outer shell, making it unstable. Since atoms always seek stability, these molecules only exist very briefly, as intermediate products of earlier chemical reactions. As soon as they encounter another molecule with which they can combine, or from which they can scavenge an electron to pair with their extra one, they do so.
The human body is constantly creating free radicals, most often during the process of oxidizing, or “burning” food for energy.11 This process produces a type of free radical called “reactive oxygen,” which can begin a very destructive chain reaction as it attempts to bond with other atoms and achieve stability. It’s a bit like the biblical raging lion, which “goes about, seeking whom it may devour.” Snatching an electron from another atom, leaving it unstable, the oxygen radical creates “another, uglier than itself,” which will in turn attack yet other atoms, creating more free radicals, and so on, and so on.
Raging about within our bodies, these sub-microscopic biochemical lions “may irritate or scar artery walls, which invites artery-clogging fatty deposits around the damage,” the so-called hardening of the arteries that leads to heart disease.12 There is also “a growing body of evidence” that “many of the things we associate with getting older—memory loss, hearing impairment—can be traced to the cumulative effects of free radicals damaging DNA … thus diminishing the body’s energy supply.”13 Scientists have also implicated oxidative stress in the development of arthritis and cataracts.
Worst of all, free radicals can have a “mutation-causing or mutagenic effect on human DNA, which can be a factor leading to cancer.”14 Too many free radicals, in fact, may have been what killed “the Duke,” the very symbol of cowboy courage and manly strength.
A normal, healthy human body provided with a balanced diet has a set of natural defenses against free radicals, in the form of “anti-oxidants.” These are substances which can chemically interact with free radicals and “neutralize” them in various ways without themselves turning into radicals. Like so many microscopic Buffys stamping out vampires without becoming vampires, they de-fang the radicals, rendering them harmless.
Foremost among these are various enzymes (proteins that help along chemical reactions without themselves being changed in the process), and the vitamins C and E. The chemical “de-fanging” activity of the enzymes depends heavily on the presence of the minerals selenium, copper, manganese, and zinc.
And exactly what is missing or declining in the foods sold in our modern supermarkets? Vitamin C (decreased by 57 percent in Canada’s potatoes, declining fast in America’s tomatoes, broccoli, and a host of other vegetables and fruits), and copper (down across-the-board by four-fifths in vegetables in England, but unfortunately not measured in the USDA tables for 1963 or 1975). The USDA did not analyze for selenium, manganese, or zinc until recently, nor for vitamin E.
What about vitamin A, down by 43.3 percent in red, ripe tomatoes in the U.S. since 1950, by 30.5 percent in tomato juice and 27.4 percent in tomato catsup since 1963? What is it good for?
First, it plays a crucial role in vision, helping to maintain the clarity of the cornea of the human eye, and in the conversion of light energy into nerve impulses in the retina. Without sufficient vitamin A, people can go blind.
In addition, vitamin A is needed to maintain what biologists call “epithelial” tissues in the body. These are the cells that form the internal and external surfaces of our bodies and their organs. They include our skin, which shields us from the outside world, and the walls that separate each of our internal organs from the others, as well as the mucus secretions that ease the movement of foods through the human digestive tract.
What could happen if a person were to stop eating vitamin A-rich foods? The authors of Understanding Nutrition are blunt: “Deficiency symptoms would not begin to appear until after [the body’s] stores were depleted—one to two years for a healthy adult but much sooner for a growing child. Then the consequences would be profound and severe.”15
In children, this could mean an upsurge in the negative effects of such infectious diseases as measles which, despite a vaccine available mostly in the rich countries, still kills some two million children worldwide every year. As Whitney and Rolfes explain: “The severity of the illness often correlates with the degree of vitamin A deficiency; deaths are usually due to related infections such as pneumonia and severe diarrhea. Providing large doses of vitamin A reduces the risk of dying from these infections.”16
More obvious results would include night blindness, in which a vitamin A-deficient person’s ability to see at night is sharply curtailed. Whitney and Rolfes provide a graphic description:
The person loses the ability to recover promptly from the temporary blinding that follows a flash of bright light at night or to see after the lights go out. In many parts of the world, after the sun goes down, vitamin A-deficient people become night-blind: children cannot find their shoes or toys, and women cannot fetch water or wash dishes. They often cling to others, or sit still, afraid that they may trip and fall or lose their way if they try to walk alone. 17
This condition may progress to total blindness.
Another result of vitamin A deficiency is “keratinization,” a condition where the victim’s epithelial surfaces are adversely affected. Mucus secretion drops, interfering with normal absorption of food along the digestive tract, causing general malnutrition. Problems also develop in the lungs, interfering with oxygen absorption, as well as in the urinary tract, the inner ear, and for women in the vagina. On the body’s outer surface, “the epithelial cells change shape and begin to secrete the protein keratin—the hard, inflexible protein of hair and nails. The skin becomes dry, rough, and scaly as lumps of keratin accumulate.”18
An attractive picture, eh? Blind, disease-prone children, short of breath, suffering from malnutrition, with problems peeing, and with scaly lumps all over their skins. Will we be seeing this in the near future? Again, probably not. But the tendency is there, and steadily increasing. Who can say where we’ll be in another 20 or another 50 years, if present trends continue unabated? The Canadian potato, remember, has already lost all of its vitamin A.
And what of iron, down by more than half in Canada’s potatoes, by 10 percent in the American tomato, and by various amounts in many other fruits and vegetables?
Statistically, low iron is the world’s most common nutrient deficiency, and is particularly dangerous for menstruating or pregnant women and for growing children. Iron is absolutely necessary for the proper maintenance of hemoglobin in the blood and myoglobin in the muscles. It helps both of these proteins carry and release oxygen, permitting the biochemical reactions that give us energy. As the authors of Understanding Nutrition explain, a series of events can be triggered by insufficient iron in the body, events which can ultimately lead to life-threatening anemia:
Long before the red blood cells are affected and anemia is diagnosed, a developing iron deficiency affects behavior. Even at slightly lowered iron levels, the complete oxidation of pyruvate is impaired, reducing physical work capacity and productivity. With reduced energy available to work, plan, think, play, sing, or learn, people simply do these things less. They have no obvious deficiency symptoms; they just appear unmotivated, apathetic and less physically fit.... A restless child who fails to pay attention in class might be thought contrary. An apathetic homemaker who has let housework pile up may be thought lazy. 19
If the iron deficiency continues and worsens, it eventually leads to full-blown iron-deficiency anemia:
In iron-deficiency anemia, red blood cells are pale and small. They can’t
carry enough oxygen from the lungs