Health and Beauty
How well will you age? We put antioxidant scanners to the test
Now there is a machine that can detect how healthy you are. Melanie Dakin tries it out
No pain no gain, so the saying goes in health matters, but a recent visit to see nutritional consultant Shirlé Welch in St Albans left me in no doubt that some ways of maintaining optimum vitality can be painless, thanks to new technology called Raman Spectroscopy.
Sir CV Raman discovered the technology on which the scanner is based in the 1920s and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1930. The new portable scanner has made his findings accessible to a much wider audience.
Shirlé starts off by asking me questions about my health in general and then goes on to explain the simple procedure, which involves a painless, non-invasive blue laser beam shone into the skin tissue of the hand for three minutes. The scanner results give a measure of carotenoid levels in the skin, indicating an overall antioxidant status and a general measurement of the body's ability to fight off damaging free radicals.
Shirlé says: "As an ageing baby boomer', and there are some 11 million of us out there in the UK alone, I became increasingly concerned with the overall ageing affects on my health. I found that one of the main reasons for this general deterioration was free radical damage.
| Antioxidants are your first line of defence | | Shirlé Welch |
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"Free radicals are highly reactive, unstable molecules created through pollution, stress, exercise, sun exposure, smoking and poor food choices. Every day they are absorbed into our bodies and in order to make themselves stable they scavenge and seek out an electron from our healthy cells." According to Shirlé, there are some 75,000 free radicals hitting the DNA in our cells each day.
"Free radical damage is one of the principal causes of premature ageing," says Shirlé. "It is a large factor in the deterioration of our health over time.
"Antioxidants are your first line of defence."
Feeling slightly nervous now about how I will score in the antioxidant stakes, I offer a shaky palm and then breathe a sigh of relief when my levels come back as moderate at 34,000. Then Shirlé tells me the highest score to date was recorded at 197,000, achieved by a woman in Mexico who lived entirely on raw fruit and vegetables, My sense of wellbeing dipped somewhat with this knowledge but left me determined to get more antioxidants into my diet.
"Our bodies naturally generate some antioxidants and certain foods such as fruit and vegetables also contain antioxidants," says Shirlé. "However, research shows that additional sources of antioxidants provide vital added protection against a growing onslaught of free radical invaders.
"Making a better effort to consume fresh foods in the right proportion is an excellent start to improving your nutritional health status, but optimal health and wellness should include a comprehensive dietary supplement programme to fill in the nutrient gaps."
I am going to try my luck without supplements for now but I shall certainly be going back to see Shirlé to see how my levels improve after the requisite three month period between sessions.
For nutritional information and scans contact Shirlé on 01727 866627.
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