The History Of Antioxidants

What many people don't know about antioxidants is that they were actually used for a number of different purposes before being made available for human consumption. It wasn't actually until the mid 20th century that scientists realized and understood exactly why the human consumption of antioxidants was helping to extend life expectancy and quality. 

If you are interested in the course that the development of consumer friendly antioxidant supplements took, this article is specifically for you. We will start back as far as the early 19th century, where the industrialization of nations was beginning to take place - and was a key contributor to the developing economies around the world.

Early Use Of Antioxidants

In the 19th century, engineers discovered that a particular substance was able to prevent the expensive condition of "metal corrosion", by shutting off the oxidation process. The chemicals they recruited to do this task were called "antioxidants", and the ability to prevent metal from corroding, or rubber from vulcanizing, saved the industrial industry millions of dollars in wasted resources each and every year.

Although the reasons why antioxidants were so effective at preventing this nasty situation from developing, scientists would soon turn their focus on the industry, and attempt to apply the same logic and principals to biotechnology.

From Metal To Food To Cells

This indeed happened in the mid 20th century. It all started with the attempts by scientists to extend the life of foods. By combining antioxidants with foods high in unsaturated fat, the tests were able to prevent the onset of rancidity - a nasty process by which the unsaturated fats break down and produce a rancid like smell and taste.

As this process continued, and new information was brought to light, it was quickly discovered that a few of the key and vital vitamins - essential in the human diet - were actually able to be classified as antioxidants too. This meant that over the past 1000 years, people had been consuming antioxidants on a daily basis.

From here, further research was started which would eventually reveal that antioxidants were able to extend the human lifespan, cut down the effects of the aging process, and provide general well being to the human body. It was this later realization which has lead us to the information we have on antioxidants this very day.