Dietary Antioxidants: "The Magic Bullets for Good Health"

During metabolic processes in our body some reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radicals are formed. Higher concentrations of these species causes cell damages resulting in certain cancers and cardiovascular diseases. Antioxidants are the compounds which scavange these free radicals and reduce the oxidative stress. Many dietary antioxidants obtained from plants are found to be very useful for prevention against diseases. Among thousands of different antioxidants some important class of compounds are vitamin-C, vitamin-E, carotenoids, flavonoids, isoflavonoids, polyphenols, anthocyanins etc. besides theses selenium, zinc are also important antioxidants. Because of their bioactivity and pharmacokinetics in prevention of health these have become a subject of increasing interest and promising field for further studies.