What are redox molecules and why do you need them?
Hey everybody. I'm Doctor Maureen Hayes from Galveston, Texas. So I'm going to answer some common questions about redox signaling molecules starting with what are they and why do we need them? Well, luckily, for us, they're made in the mitochondria of every single one of our cells, trillions and trillions of cells throughout our body. And if we didn't have them, we would perish they're necessary for cellular function and cellular communication. But what happens is as we age and we're under stress and we're exposed to different pollutants and things like um UV rays and environmental electromagnetic fields, things like that. Our mitochondria are affected and we may have an imbalance or even a deficiency of some of these molecules. So the signaling that happens between the cells might be interrupted or processes that should be turned on or turned off or not. And then things can go awry. So if we can replenish these and restore the balance, our cells will start functioning much more efficiently and effectively. Like they are a younger cell.
Can you explain the role of redox signaling molecules in cellular health and function?
These red signaling molecules are incredibly important for our overall health. They're tiny molecules that are absorbed directly into the cells. They don't need to have any uh lock and key function like a hormone or any active uptake. They're very tiny. They go directly in where they turn on and off vital functions and they cause a reaction in the cells around them. So they spread kind of like a domino effect or a cascade or even a ripple in a pond when you throw in a stone. And because of these functions that leads in the body and overall resilience to stress, which leads to overall wellness.
What is oxidative stress and how does it impact human health? How is it related to redox balance and how it helps oxidative stress.
What is oxidative stress? Well, everybody's heard of oxidative stress but they may or may not know exactly what it is. It has a lot to do with the balance between the free radicals in your body and the antioxidants. We know that these things balance themselves out. But when you have too many free radicals, then you can start having things like rusting and um rotting. If you will, if you think about taking a bite of it out of an apple and leaving it on the countertop, you're going to see oxidation happening to that apple. It's gonna start to turn brown. Well, that can happen inside our bodies too sort of a Ying and Yang situation because we do need some free radicals. We've been hearing for decades that they're bad but your body uses free radicals all the time, but it likes to reverse those or negate them because of this balance. Now, like I said, when those things are out of balance, that's when you start to see problems arise from it, from the oxidative stress and you get to disease states. So when you actually overcome that imbalance or you fix that imbalance, you start to see the effects of oxidative stress negate. So that's a very important thing for homeostasis in the body is to have that balance. Now, it's not always going to be perfect. You're not always going to be center. But what is really important is the ability to go back to center to re center when you're pushed to one side or the other, when when one becomes a little bit more active than the other, to be able to get back to center to back to balance is what we're really striving for. And that's what leads to our overall wellness is that ability to overcome that stress.
How do environmental factors such as pollution and UV radiation affect redox balance, and what can individuals do to protect themselves?
Because these little molecules are made in the mitochondria of our cells. Anything that affects our mitochondria is going to affect the balance of these molecules. So things like pollution, aging is a big one. Medications, electromagnetic fields, any kind of stress is going to affect our mitochondria and maybe cause mitochondrial dysfunction. So as we get older, we know we lose about 10% of our mitochondria per decade after puberty. So we're on a downhill hill slide after puberty. And then like I said, all these other things are are harming the efficiency and the effectiveness of our mitochondria and that causes an imbalance. So when you restore the balance of these molecules and we're actually doing it directly, we're kind of bypassing the mitochondria in order to do this by directly ingesting the molecules and putting them back into our cells. We can overcome those imbalances and overcome those deficiencies.
