On the topic, as oxidation is a pretty prevalent negative side effect of living, our body has multiple mechanisms to deal with it, no? So my question is: where do the "antioxidants" that we can eat come into the picture here? Are they like preventing oxidation from even occurring, or are they like the shields that our cells use to protect themselves from oxidative stress, or what have you?

[–] liquorisquicker@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 52 minutes ago)

Oxidation is the loss of electrons, whereas reduction is the gain of electrons. The mnemonic is OIL RIG: Oxidation Is Loss, Reduction Is Gain.

Oxygen is highly electronegative (second only to fluorine), meaning that it will strongly pull electrons. So, oxygen is good at oxidizing things. It's good at stealing their electrons. (When the oxygen takes the electron, the oxygen becomes reduced!)

The reason that oxygen is so important in your body for respiration is because of its high electronegativity. It is used as the final electron acceptor in a chain of chemical reactions that are used to convert high energy molecules that you've eaten into different high energy molecules that your body can use.

Think of the analogy of a staircase and a ball. The ball is an electron and the stairs are energy states of different molecules along the metabolic pathway. As the ball goes down the stairs, the electron loses energy (which is usually converted to ATP or NADH). At the bottom of the stairs is oxygen, once the electron gets there, it doesn't have anymore potential energy to lose, unless maybe you have some fluorine around. The final, reduced state of oxygen in this pathway is carbon dioxide. It's no longer useful for respiration and thankfully can just be exhaled. How convenient!

An oxygen missing an electron (an oxygen radical) is highly reactive. This is not good. It'll just steal an electron from whatever molecule is nearby. That may be DNA or any other molecule that it's in your best interest to keep intact. Antioxidants are helpful as electron donors, neutralizing radicals before they do damage.

[–] peregrin5@lemm.ee 19 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

Oxidation is how red blood cells collect oxygen to pass to the rest of the body. In fact it is iron in hemoglobin that "rusts" to collect the oxygen. You would die if your blood didn't "rust".

Antioxidants have nothing to do with this.

[–] Greyghoster@aussie.zone 2 points 4 hours ago

Thanks, this is an unexpected image and a fun fact for the next party.

[–] Winter_Oven@piefed.social 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

ooh, then I must have gotten the terms wrong...

What I was thinking were the free radicals that are generated during basically most oxygen related reactions in the body, I thought that was called oxidation (at least, in terms of the body).

So, you know anything about how (or if) antioxidants are used against free radicals?

[–] ThoGot@feddit.org 4 points 6 hours ago

That actually depends on the type of antioxidant. The body has certain innate antioxidants (e.g. enzymes like catalase) to deal with reactive oxygen species but antioxidants that you get through your diet are also very important in that system (like vitamin c and e to prevent oxidation of cell membranes for example). Also some phytochemicals (like polyphenols) can act as an antioxidant.

[–] knightmare1147@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I actually thought about this a few years ago, is it possible that we age because of oxidation to some degree? Is there a way to prevent that? I thought about it, how blood can rust and just had the connecting thought but I'm not smart enough to know if there's any actual correlation.

[–] Winter_Oven@piefed.social 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Pretty sure oxidation plays a major role in aging, but can't tell you the exact mechanism, I have no idea about it.

But about the blood rust idea, I don't think that can work, cause we don't have just iron particles that can directly interact with oxygen just floating around in our blood, we have a complex (I.e. hemoglobin) that contains significant amounts of iron, which somehow makes it really good for binding to and carrying oxygen.

Deviating a bit, carbon monoxide poisoning is really akin to suffcation iirc, cause it binds and occupies the hemoglobin, effectively reducing the amount of oxygen that can be carried by your blood.

However, do fact check me, I might be wrong about something...

Edit: BTW, it seems that "oxidation" might not be the right term to use here, so do understand that I am referring to free radicals here.

[–] chaotic_altruist@lemm.ee 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

You're pretty much right about everything. Oxygen (especially as free radicals) is damaging to pretty much all your tissues, so your body moves it around in little bodyguard proteins (hemoglobin). These each contain 4 small iron molecules as part of the much bigger structure and doesn't rust or function like iron in any way. The iron is mostly used for electrons (and also damages your body if it's not inside the hemoglobin and causes more aging)

Carbon monoxide has a higher affinity for hemoglobin than oxygen, so it sticks to your blood cells and makes them useless for hours. Super dangerous.

Point being "oxidative stress" is bad for you and a major cause of aging that your body tries to fight. If your body doesn't fix this well, you age faster. If it repairs damage too well, you're more prone to cancer. Just wear and tear of using your body.

So to the original question of can this process be stopped... Absolutely! Hold your breath - the oxygen will stop coursing through your body and you will stop aging. Just ten minutes is enough to end aging indefinitely! Then you have to worry about other problems like body decomposition, but the oxidative stress will be cured!

[–] cenzorrll@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 hours ago

Carbon monoxide, not dioxide.

[–] Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 3 points 6 hours ago

I'm no expert but I'm fairly sure that is basically true in a way. As per zr0's top-level comment. Forms of life that can make do with less cellular respiration, for example by using external sources to regulate temperature (cold- blooded), don't need to invite as much oxygen into their cells, and so they get less weird damage over time. Mammals in general have not adopted this strategy.