Dr. Angela Agrios, ND
My very talented Naturopathic Doctor
She treats a wide variety of conditions
Office & phone appointments available
Los Angeles, CA (Pacific Palisades)
Naturopathic Medicine
Antioxidant Supplements Improve Our Health Interview with Dr. Angela Agrios, ND My personal naturopathic doctor. Dr. Agrios is in Los Angeles and
accepts office and phone appointments.
We all are bombarded with so many different free radicals that essentially damage our DNA, and that’s why we get increased cancer risks when we get oxidative damage. And so getting as many antioxidants in your body as possible is really, really useful. There are things like CoQ10 is a really common one. This tends to have a lot of cardiac benefits. This is a liquid one that they have here that’s actually a natural form of mixed gamma tocopherols that I love because a lot of people just don’t like pills, and they’re kind of big vitamin Es. They’re like the big soft gel caps. So you know, one dropper full of this is 400 IUs, and that’s really easy to just drop into anything else.
This is a nice full spectrum natural vitamin E antioxidant. Vitamin E also has some blood thinning effects. It’s really neuro-protective. It does protect against oxidative damage, just like all the antioxidants do. It really helps protect your red blood cells and your white blood cells. And so in that way, it kind of prevents anemia because your cells don’t break as easily and keeps immune functions strong. And let’s see. It keeps your blood from being sticky. There’s a very anti-platelet, an anti-inflammatory effect to vitamin E. I think it’s really useful.
Vitamin C is our classic. It’s another good antioxidant. Lots of different forms, but boosts immunity, keeps our skin intact, promotes healing of skin, cartilage, blood vessels and joints. It’s a good fatigue fighter. Not a lot of people know, but vitamin C is really important in adrenal health and production of cellular energy, and it also helps prevent iron deficiency anemia because it helps absorb iron. So in those three ways, it can really improve energy. And it does protect against heart disease. Linus Pauling talked a lot about this. It actually helps clean out the arteries and it helps keep LDLs from oxidizing, and it’s very anti-carcinogenic. In order to get the kind of cardio-protective effects of vitamin C, you’ve got to really dose higher. So like general immune stuff. One to three grams a day. Like, vitamin C for cardiovascular protective effects, you’ll see more like six to ten grams a day.
You’ve got to do divided doses. That will definitely induce a loose stool if you just kind of start with that for most people. And some people still couldn’t tolerate that much orally and will do it IV, but most people will tolerate that just fine. So takeaway for vitamin C is supports immunity, healthy stress response, decreases allergies, promotes good energy, keeps our skin vessels, joints, and muscles healthy. And it’s protective against cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Computer Screen Version
Designed specifically to be read easily on your computer screen.
Over 200 hyperlinks to the web.
Home Printer Version
Designed and formatted to be printed on your home printer for easy reading.
A couple things about CoQ10 as an antioxidant. Oh, anyone on a statin needs to be on CoQ10. I don’t know why this isn’t public information or why it’s just not on every statin label. Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. They stop the production of CoQ10 in the body. So there’s other ways that I would much prefer to get people’s cholesterols level down, but if they’re going to be on a statin, they really need to be taking CoQ10 -- at least 200 milligrams a day. And there’s zero toxicity to CoQ10. It’s just expensive. So you can dose 400, 800 milligrams a day. Have at it. I say at least 200 milligrams a day.
And then alpha lipoic acid is a universal antioxidant that increases energy, but it’s also really great for diabetics in particular because it really helps with nerve damage and it helps with glycosylation reactions, which are reactions when there’s too much sugar in the body and there’s proteins that start cross-linking. This happens a lot with uncontrolled sugar issues, and so alpha lipoic acid is ideal for a diabetic person, but it’s great for all of us as we age.
The unique thing about alpha lipoic acid is that it’s both water and fat soluble, where usually like, vitamin C’s water soluble, vitamin E’s fat soluble, alpha lipoic acid does both. And they all kind of help recycle each other and work synergistically, so it’s kind of nice, too. For alpha lipoic acid, I think 600 milligrams is a good dose.
