NSAS Idea Suggestion #5 - Antioxidant Hype

In this series I propose daily ideas for new members who are interested in becoming #steemstem authors.

NSAS: New STEM Authors Support

I will post an idea a dayish (it is the goal to post daily, but again real life>steemit for now). With this idea I will include a short description about aspects you may be interested in. If you read this idea proposal, and you like it, and you want to write about it:

Go to the comments and write: "I, username, claim this idea"

Obviously "username" is where you write your own username. This is so that I know who is interested in @steemstem and science in general and I am always looking for a good read. This is honor system stuff, so please respect someone claiming an idea. Again, this is just the first step towards writing a good science post. There is more to it. Do your research, use scientific sources and try to use some proper language and attractive design.
This series will have their own hashtag #nsas, so that you can go back and sort through some of the ideas I have shared and what people made out of it. If you decide to use the idea I propose, please also include #nsas on your posts so that I can have a look at it and maybe get you connected in the steemstem group.
Please also visit @steemstem on steemit as well as on Discord. Follow the guidelines and appreciate the community. That means engage, upvote and comment until your fingers bleed.

This post would be great if you are down for some mythbusting. It almost does not matter which health product you look at - super foods, mega soup, uber roots or giga aluminum hats - they almost always proclaim that they can rid your body of all the free radicals with their super antioxidants. By getting rid of free radicals, or, in the context of health more common, reactive oxygen species (ROS), you will forever be young, never get cancer and be happy, all the time. In my opinion antioxidants are overhyped and radicals are misunderstood. Just like about any health myth, industry (be it big pharma or alternative pharma) took advantage of our wish for health and youth and turned a piece of the health-puzzle into a magic bullet. But that is just my opinion and I would be very happy if you take this topic and convince me otherwise. If nobody claims this by next week, I will write about it in one or two weeks (once I have edited my research proposal and finished exams). I think this post may have the potential to actually ignite a debate, since it is rather provocative. Here is a proposed outline:

• Some figures and numbers about "antioxidant industry"
• What are radicals (chemically)?
• Talk about the role of radicals in health (not just in disease, but also as messengers, etc.)
• Argue use and damage
  Sorry to spoil this, but the conclusion should look something like this: they are needed, but too much is bad.
  Then you could talk about bad habits that could cause an increase of radicals to pathogenic levels.

Again, I give you a week to claim this idea, and then I will tackle it myself ;)
Or, another idea, if you want to collaborate on this post I would be very open to this idea to! Just hmu and we can plan this. This would actually be my preferred idea.

I am also a mentor for @steemstem. Currently, I have one mentee so, if you want me to help you get your foot in the stem-door, leave a comment or find me on Discord. Depending on where you live, it may take me a day to reply. I will also help you with any of the proposed ideas. Just contact me and send me a draft and I will give you my two cents.

@deholt, @csusbgeochem1: maybe this might be an interesting post for you guys?

Previous Idea Suggestions

• Suggestion #1: Onions and their Health Benefits
• Suggestion #2: Tea - The Silent Killer
• Suggestion #3: Essential Oils
• Suggestion #4: Biotechnology And Beer-Brewing

As always,
Cheers @lesshorrible!

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To #steemstem curators: I appreciate your previous upvotes on this series, but I think other people who write actual stem posts deserve them better. If think this post is stem worthy, please just upvote it with minimal VP. I would love for these posts to be visible, but I really do not deserve a steemstem upvote.