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Article: Exercise and free radicals.
- Article from:
- Medical Update
- Article date:
- April 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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We've talked a lot about those mysterious "free radicals" over the last couple of years -- and about the antioxidants that combat them. As you may recall from high-school chemistry, the nucleus of an atom carries a positive electrical charge neutralized by the negatively charged electrons that surround it. Should the atom lose some of its negative charge, it becomes unstable and moves about, seeking electrons from other atoms to regain stability. Such an unstable atom is called a free radical -- and free radicals are constantly being generated in the body by normal and abnormal biochemical processes.
When these free radicals remove electrons from other atoms or ...