The essential antioxidants your body can’t live without

Antioxidants are perhaps the most important anti-aging tools in existence.

Simply put, antioxidants are your body’s natural weapons against damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS), better known as free radicals. Free radicals are unstable, rogue molecules with unpaired electrons that roam your body looking to “steal” new electrons from nearby molecules.

In other words, they wreak havoc in your body.

As Dr. Fred Pescatore explains in his Ultimate Anti-Aging Protocol, “Free radicals leave a trail of damage that creates new free radicals that start hunting for electrons to replace the ones that were stolen from them. As you might expect, this damage can add up in the form of premature aging, inflammation, chronic disease, and cancer unless free radicals are neutralized ASAP.”

That’s precisely where antioxidants come in: They stop free radical damage dead in its tracks.

Unfortunately, you can’t depend on your diet to supply you with the amount of antioxidants you need. Fruits and vegetables simply don’t have anywhere near the same nutrient profile they once did. Which is why Dr. Pescatore believes supplementing with antioxidants is key to longevity.

Here is Dr. Pescatore’s shortlist of antioxidants that he believes are most essential for your health:

Vitamin D3:

This may not seem like a traditional antioxidant… and it isn’t. But there are so many studies discussing the role this natural compound plays in disease prevention that Dr. Pescatore feels it belongs on this list.

Just remember that conventional “sufficiency” thresholds aren’t going to cut it here. You need blood levels around 80 ng/ml to get the best health benefits. And reaching that level often requires supplement doses of up to 10,000 IU per day.

Vitamin E:

An oldie but goodie. Your essential enzyme systems need this antioxidant in order to work efficiently. But avoid artificial vitamin E at all costs.

The supplement you use must be natural—so make sure it doesn’t have a “dl” prefix listed before the tocopherols. And the supplement must have the full range of tocopherols: alpha, beta, gamma, and delta.

Dr. Pescatore recommends taking 400 IU per day. However, if you are taking blood thinners, you must run this dose by your doctor.

Cocoa flavonoids:

Cocoa powder—the essential ingredient in chocolate, made from roasted cacao beans—is one of the richest sources of antioxidants on the planet. Provided you’re not getting it with a heaping helping of sugar. Taking cocoa flavonoids in supplement form eliminates the risk of sugar overload while still delivering the benefits of chocolate. Dr. Pescatore recommends taking 1 gram, three times per day.

Coenzyme Q10:

This is an amazing antioxidant in its own right, but it also enables all of the other antioxidants to do the job they were meant to do. Dr. Pescatore recommends a dose of 300 to 900 mg per day.

You can access Dr. Pescatore’s full list of essential antioxidants in his Ultimate Anti-Aging Protocol. Click here to get started today, or to learn more about this indispensable protocol.