Nutrition experts recommend antioxidants for their ability to check inflammation

• Scraping one's knee can also result in external and localised inflammation with symptoms of redness, heat, swelling, pain and tenderness.
• Triggers of inflammatory response in the body include allergenic foods, excessive consumption of sugar, drug overuse, environmental toxins and free radical damage.
• Science is now unravelling the link between chronic systemic inflammation and age-related diseases such as atherosclerosis, cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, congestive heart failure, digestive system diseases, joint disease and Alzheimer's.
• It seems that inflammatory chemicals have been found to affect body functions and diet plays a role in the development of chronic inflammatory diseases.
• Our natural antioxidant system is mainly made up of enzymes such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase and glutathione peroxidase.
• These antioxidant enzymes are our first line of defence in destroying the free radicals.
• We also synthesise small amounts of antioxidants from the food we eat, such as L-carnitine, alpha-lipoic acid and co-enzyme Q10.
• Scientists only realised the versatility of alpha lipoic acid (ALA) as a potent antioxidant for prevention and treatment of age-related diseases in the late 80s.
• Nutrients such as beta-carotene, vitamin C, E, zinc, selenium, vitamin B6 and magnesium also have anti-inflammatory activity.
• Red meat and dairy foods which are high in saturated fat promote the synthesis of inflammatory prostaglandins.
• Prostaglandins are hormone-like substances derived from the metabolism of fatty acids.
• While not all fatty acid metabolites exacerbate inflammation, oils from fish, pumpkin, flaxseed and evening primrose are anti-inflammatory.
• Sugar is known to interact with the amino acid side chains of tissue proteins for example in blood vessels, in a chemical reaction known as glycation which changes the structure of proteins.
• The structurally-changed glycated proteins cause the immune system to mistake them for foreign bodies.