Today we’re talking to Dr. Mark Gordon, a physician with over 20 years of experience in clinical cardiology. Dr. Gordon has participated in numerous pharmaceutical and medical device trials, and his passion for prevention has led him to focus his practice on preventative and integrative cardiology.

Dr. Gordon is currently focused on the hot topic of NRF2 and how it helps the body deal with oxidative stress, which is the root cause of hundreds of diseases. He explains that oxidative stress is like a rusting of the body from the inside out. It is created from free radicals, which are the highly unstable and destructive byproducts of metabolism created by our bodies every day.

Dr. Gordon explains that oxidative stress and free radicals go hand in hand. And while some free radicals are actually beneficial – they can help heal infections by targeting bad bacteria — those produced above and beyond what’s necessary are responsible for diseases of aging like cancer and cardiovascular diseases, among countless others. Oxidative stress is essentially the free radical process run wild, which in turn causes damage to the cells.

For many years, the popular wisdom was that people could simply take loads of antioxidants to combat this process. But over the last 10 to 15 years, studies have shown detrimental effects of taking too many direct antioxidants.

Not only is it an ineffective way of dealing with oxidative stress that doesn’t reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, it can also actually increase the risk in some individuals in whom the antioxidant is converted to a pro-oxidant.

Researchers are still learning more about this process, but the answer in the meantime is to boost the body’s built-in antioxidant defense system to buffer these effects, as opposed to relying on external sources.

Our body produces its own enzymes to combat the adverse effects of oxidative stress. But as we age, we produce fewer of this enzymes, giving free radicals more free reign to do damage.

Around 2002, scientists dived into a hot new area of research revolving around NRF2. NRF2 is a messenger protein in all of the cells in the body that goes into a cell’s nucleus and turns on genes that code antioxidant proteins to fight off free radicals, thereby reducing oxidative stress.

We are born with the ability to make NRF2, and this system is critical for healthy aging.

As we age, there are several things that we can do to boost the body’s innate NRF2 system.

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