Health + Wellness — Biology

Sunlight plays an important role in helping the body produce vitamin D, a nutrient essential for bone health, immune function, and overall wellness. When the skin is exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) rays, it naturally begins synthesizing vitamin D, although factors such as skin tone, location, season, sunscreen use, age, and time spent outdoors can affect production levels. Maintaining a balanced approach to sun exposure while practicing safe sun protection habits can help support healthy vitamin D levels without increasing the risk of excessive UV damage. There’s a lot of confusion surrounding sunlight and the production of Vitamin D. People...

Overview As was discussed in a previous article, What Are Free Radicals?, just the very act of living–breathing, eating, and building up and breaking down the tissues and structures that make up your body–generates free radicals. These free radicals are necessary for many reactions that occur in your body, but if not precisely controlled, these free radicals can cause problems. The reason is because free radicals are highly reactive, and as such can cause damage to anything close to them. This damage, if not repaired, can lead to permanent changes in your body and what you eventually see as a...

Overview Free radicals are atoms or molecules with unpaired electrons. These molecules are considered oxidized. Because in most molecules this state is very unstable, free radicals are highly reactive and therefore try to pair these unpaired electrons in whatever manner they can. This unstable state is often stabilized when the free radical grabs or shares an electron from or with another molecule (when the free radical is reduced). Often a free radical is stabilized when it grabs a free electron from a nearby molecule that is stable, causing that molecule to now become a free radical and be unstable itself....