Oxidative Stress

You’ve heard of mitochondria before: the thousands of tiny “powerhouses” in each of your body’s trillions of cells that burn oxygen to make energy. But like most fuels, burning oxygen, though integral to our metabolism, comes at a cost: reactive oxygen species (ROS), or free radicals. These unstable molecules damage others and interfere with normal physiology, a process often called “oxidative stress.” ROS aren’t all bad—they play an important role in combatting infections and dealing with malfunctioning cells, for example. But when ROS are unchecked, a chemical chain reaction of electron theft occurs, altering healthy cellular structure and destabilizing important components of our physiology.