Why Dietary Antioxidants are a Game-Changer

Dietary antioxidants – found in plant foods like fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains – are important for improving health and play key roles in optimizing performance and recovery. In this post, we’ll look at what antioxidants are, why they’re so beneficial for health, how they can unlock your athletic potential, and which foods are the best sources. 

What are Antioxidants?

Antioxidants are molecules that help to neutralize free radicals in the body. Many environmental and metabolic factors can result in the production of free radicals – unstable atoms that, if left unchecked, can damage cells and lead to oxidative stress, which contributes to a range of chronic diseases. 

Maintaining the balance between free radicals and antioxidants is therefore considered critical for maintaining good health (1). There are many different types of antioxidants, some of which can be produced by the body, but many of which must come from the diet. 

How do they Affect Health?

The effects of dietary antioxidants on health outcomes has been studied in depth, allowing for large reviews of the science to be conducted. These reviews highlight how greater intake is consistently linked with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, all-cause mortality, and even slower biological aging (2-4). 

On top of these important longer-term benefits, more immediate effects on health can also include improved immune function, enhanced cognitive performance, beneficial changes to gut microbiota composition, and lower body fat mass (5-8). 

How do they affect performance and recovery?

As if the significant long- and short-term health benefits of dietary antioxidants weren’t enough, they’ve also been shown to improve exercise performance and recovery. 

During exercise, metabolism speeds up substantially, and this results in increased production of free radicals. This isn’t always a problem, because those free radicals can signal to the body to ramp up production of its in-built antioxidant defenses, resulting in important health benefits as well as adaptive responses to training (9,10). 

But intense exercise, or insufficient rest between training sessions, can lead to high levels of free radicals that can hinder muscular contractile function, cause damage to cells and tissues, promote inflammation, and impair performance (11). Dietary antioxidants from plant foods can help prevent these processes, significantly improving immediate exercise performance as well as the recovery processes (12). 

Which Foods Contain Antioxidants?

Some of the richest sources of dietary antioxidants include fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, nuts, seeds, legumes, and whole grains. On average, plant-based foods have 64 times the antioxidant content of animal based foods, with even lettuce containing significantly more antioxidants than fish or eggs (13,14). 

To reap maximum benefits of antioxidant-rich plant foods, it’s recommended to aim for a variety of colored fruits and vegetables, because various colors represent different bioactive pigments with antioxidant properties that together can have synergistic benefits (15). Other rich sources include tea (regular and herbal varieties), coffee, dark chocolate, and various plant extracts and concentrates. The barley-rice protein and whole ground lupin in FȲTA Elite Plant Protein are also great natural sources of antioxidants (16,17). 

However, some athletes turn to isolated antioxidant supplements, often in high doses, in the belief that more is always better. But this can in fact prevent some physiological functions of free radicals that are needed for cell signaling, hampering many of the performance-enhancing and health-promoting adaptations to exercise (18,19). At high doses, isolated antioxidant supplements can even increase mortality (20). 

The Take Home Message

Antioxidants play a crucial role in protecting our cells from damage, providing significant benefits to long-term health and longevity as well as more immediate improvements in performance and recovery. But it seems taking shortcuts – by using isolated antioxidant supplements – has limited benefits, and in some cases can even be harmful. 

So increasing intake through whole foods is the best way forward. But this is a win-win, because some of the best sources – like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds – also come packed with other nutrients and compounds that promote both health and performance, such as various vitamins and minerals, fiber, dietary nitrates, and complex carbohydrates. 

References

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2. Aune, D., Keum, N., Giovannucci, E., Fadnes, L. T., Boffetta, P., Greenwood, D. C., Tonstad, S., Vatten, L. J., Riboli, E., & Norat, T. (2018). Dietary intake and blood concentrations of antioxidants and the risk of cardiovascular disease, total cancer, and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 108(5), 1069–1091. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqy097
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12. Clemente-Suárez, V. J., Bustamante-Sanchez, Á., Mielgo-Ayuso, J., Martínez-Guardado, I., Martín-Rodríguez, A., & Tornero-Aguilera, J. F. (2023). Antioxidants and Sports Performance. Nutrients, 15(10), 2371. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15102371
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14. Zujko, M. E., & Witkowska, A. M. (2011). Antioxidant Potential and Polyphenol Content of Selected Food. International Journal of Food Properties, 14(2), 300–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/10942910903176584
15. Blumfield, M., Mayr, H., De Vlieger, N., Abbott, K., Starck, C., Fayet-Moore, F., & Marshall, S. (2022). Should We 'Eat a Rainbow'? An Umbrella Review of the Health Effects of Colorful Bioactive Pigments in Fruits and Vegetables. Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 27(13), 4061. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27134061
16. Nyhan, L., Sahin, A. W., Schmitz, H. H., Siegel, J. B., & Arendt, E. K. (2023). Brewers' Spent Grain: An Unprecedented Opportunity to Develop Sustainable Plant-Based Nutrition Ingredients Addressing Global Malnutrition Challenges. Journal of agricultural and food chemistry, 71(28), 10543–10564. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.3c02489 
17. Estivi, L., Brandolini, A., Gasparini, A., & Hidalgo, A. (2023). Lupin as a Source of Bioactive Antioxidant Compounds for Food Products. Molecules (Basel, Switzerland), 28(22), 7529. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28227529
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19. Ristow, M., Zarse, K., Oberbach, A., Klöting, N., Birringer, M., Kiehntopf, M., Stumvoll, M., Kahn, C. R., & Blüher, M. (2009). Antioxidants prevent health-promoting effects of physical exercise in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(21), 8665–8670. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903485106
20. Bjelakovic, G., Nikolova, D., Gluud, L. L., Simonetti, R. G., & Gluud, C. (2012). Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy participants and patients with various diseases. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 2012(3), CD007176. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD007176.pub2