Empower Network

There’s nothing like the smell of a new car. You never forget the day you drive your first one off the lot—the engine smoothly purring because the catalytic converter is cleaning up the toxic byproducts, or exhaust, produced by the engine. But eventually your new car ages, the catalytic converter becomes less effective, the exhaust isn’t very clean anymore, things begin to rust and the engine suffers wear and tear.

Our cells are like car engines. They have the same combustion process, produce some of the same byproducts and clean up with similar catalytic converters. When we’re young our enzymes, our cells’ catalytic converters, function well and do a good job cleaning the toxic byproducts our bodies generate living life. But unfortunately, like cars, our bodies don’t always function like new. As we age our bodies produce more free radicals and less of the special enzymes that fight free radicals. This leads to oxidative stress.

Oxidative stress represents an imbalance between the production and manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological systems’ ability to readily detoxify the reactive intermediates and to repair the damage they cause at the cellular level. In other words, although we need oxygen to live, high concentrations of it are actually corrosive and toxic.

We obtain energy by burning fuel with oxygen; that is, by combining digested food with oxygen from the air we breathe. This is a controlled metabolic process that, unfortunately, also generates dangerous byproducts. These include free radicals, electronically unstable atoms or molecules capable of stripping electrons from any other molecules they meet in an effort to achieve stability. In their wake, they create even more unstable molecules that then attack their neighbors in domino-like chain reactions. This causes toxic effects through the production of secondary free radicals that damage all components of the cell, including proteins, lipids and DNA.

While one antioxidant molecule can fight only one or two free radicals before it is depleted, the body’s free radical-fighting enzymes can each eliminate up to one million molecules per second, every second, without being used up in the process. The most effective way to fight free radicals is to trigger the body to produce its own free radical-fighting enzymes.

Traditional antioxidant supplements eliminate one free radical for every one antioxidant molecule consumed, however, Protandim, the most potent commercially-available Nrf2 Synergizer ™ supplement on the market, acts by a completely different mechanism. It induces cells to produce more of the genetically encoded catalytic defense systems. Every enzyme molecule produced by this approach can eliminate up to one million free radicals per second, every second. Protandim achieves this feat by activating a signaling molecule called Nrf2, the master regulator of the antioxidant response in the molecule that controls the set of genes sometimes referred to as survival genes.

Our bodies already contain the information for how to effectively combat stressful situations, such as oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. That information is stored in our genes. The secret lies in being able to instruct cells regarding the implementation of that information, allowing you to keep your primary vehicle, your body, running well—able to withstand the “rusting” of aging and taking you where you want to go for many years to come.