By now you’ve heard about the green tea’s antioxidant abilities, and how the quality of this antioxidant helps fight against dangerous diseases like cancer and heart disease. But what is an antioxidant? And why would anything that’s anti-oxygen be good for you or for your bodies health?

Antioxidants do not do anything to oxygen. Antioxidants fight a chemical reaction called oxidation. This is the same process that causes metals to rust. Oxidation is the mingling between oxygen molecules and what they come in contact with. If it is living tissue where this occurs then that’s when damage of disease occurs.

Free Radicals with in your body are highly unstable molecules that travel around your body causing nothing but major problems. Free radicals are generated by exposure to UV rays, toxins,smoking and other sources. The major source of the free radicals is from the oxygen molecule its self.

Oxygen typically travels throughout the body in pairs, and these two molecules share electrons. But sometimes this double molecule splits into two separate oxygen molecules called singlet oxygen. When this happens, there are no longer enough electrons to go around, so each oxygen molecule ends up one electron short. This destabilizes the molecule, in a sense throwing it off balance. In order too stabilize itself, it races off throughout the body in search of another electron.

The single molecule does not just sit around waiting for another electron to become available, what this little bugger does is it goes around and find ones to steal. So what happens to the molecule that just had it’s electron stolen, well, it goes and steals it’s own from another molecule. This process of stealing back and forth causes damage to the cells and it often though to be a leading contributor to cancer, heart disease and aging.

What antioxidants do is fight against this constant stealing of electrons. Your inner body police, is the best way to look at it. How they work is they donate electrons to the free radicals so the urge to steel is gone. You body does produce a certain amount of antioxidants, but not nearly enough!

Among others, these include beta-carotene, vitamins C and E, the mineral selenium, and various phytochemicals such as lycopene and quercetin. But the catechins, especially EGCg, are among the most powerful and effective antioxidants of all.