The Pros and Cons of Plant Compounds as Antioxidants

Plant molecules do not directly participate in human reactive oxygen species chemistry as antioxidants they participate as prooxins. They trigger the formation of more endogenous antioxidants in our body but plant molecules are creating reactive oxygen species so this is striking because we've had it all wrong people just say oh you want tons of these things. When we look at studies interventional studies with fruits and vegetables we don't actually see a benefit which suggests very clearly that we don't need these molecules to have optimal antioxidant defense. If somebody's going to try and make a case for plants as phytonutrients that are unique for humans they need to be able to demonstrate that these molecules benefit us above and beyond what we can