Content thanks to Kristin Donnelly
Nrf2 (sometimes pronounced 'nerf-too') activators are antioxidant-creating powerhouses. More antioxidants usually means less inflammation, less cell damage, and healthier living. So how do we get more antioxidants? Activate your Nrf2! Let’s dive a little deeper and find out how Nrf2 activators affect our bodies.
These days we have so much information at our fingertips, yet finding the truth can be harder than ever. Figuring out how to eat and live healthy is no exception.
Should I eat whole grains or go gluten-free? Is full-fat plain yogurt better than fat-free fruit yogurt? I’m supposed to get omega-3s from eating fish but don’t vegetarians live longer? It’s hard not to get bogged down in every detail when trying to eat healthy.
Inflammation is pervasive in modern lifestyles. It plays a major role in many diseases, including the onset of heart disease, the incidence of depression, and in the onset of cancer.
With such widespread inflammation and such powerful negative effects, finding ways of reducing or combating inflammation is of huge importance to medicine today.
Many plants produce active compounds that alleviate inflammation. These phytochemicals can activate antioxidant responses to inflammatory agents such as processed meat, pollution, alcohol, and stress. Phytochemicals (pronounced 'fie-toh-kem-ick-alls') can do this by activating–you guessed it! the Nrf2 pathway.
What this means is in order to reduce systemic inflammation, you can simply change your diet to include lots of inflammation-fighting foods.
Viruses are a major component of deaths worldwide. The HIV epidemic of the early 1980s and the COVID-19 pandemic are a grim reminder of what these tiny infections can do.
Research on HIV shows that processes related to the virus stop Nrf2 from being expressed, which leads to the damage of healthy tissue in the lungs. However, this study also shows that activating Nrf2 can alleviate some of the damaging effects of the virus on lung tissue.
The research above also shows that even while on anti-retroviral therapy, low levels of the virus still block Nrf2 from activating, stopping antioxidant proteins from being made and increasing oxidative stress.
Most viruses cause oxidative stress in the body, so helping the body to induce its antioxidant protection could be useful for protecting against toxic oxidants.
In addition to general oxidative stress, some preliminary research shows that COVID-19 can cause pulmonary fibrosis. While the mechanism behind this is still unknown, past research in mice shows that Nrf2 can actually protect against pulmonary fibrosis. That could be one reason why the potent Nrf2 activators have been suggested as a possible COVID-19 therapy.
Think of oxidative stress in your body like rusting on a car. When we don’t take care of our car, exposure to air, water, and salt will cause rusting. Similarly, when we don’t take care of our body by eating healthy, avoiding pollution, and alleviating lifestyle stresses, toxic oxidants build up and cause oxidative stress.
In other words, oxidative stress happens when there are too many damaging oxidants in our system for our body to neutralize. Lots of things can cause oxidative stress: inflammatory foods, lifestyle stress, injury, and simply getting older.
In today’s world, poor diet choices are a major contributor to oxidative stress. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is full of inflammatory foods such as corn syrup, red meat, candy, processed and pre-packaged foods, high-fat dairy products, processed grains, fried foods, excessive alcohol, and processed meats.
When we eat these inflammatory foods, our bodies have to produce more antioxidants to neutralize the flood of toxic oxidants.
On the other hand, as we age Nrf2 activation naturally slows down. Yes, even though you need more Nrf2 activation as you age, your body is actually less able to activate it. That means that no matter how healthy you may be and how many antioxidant foods you eat, eventually your body can’t make enough neutralizing antioxidants to prevent oxidative stress. So it’s really important to help your body activate Nrf2 pathways.
Nrf2 is a protein our bodies need. Nrf2 is known as the ‘master regulator’ of the body’s antioxidant pathway.
When you activate your Nrf2 pathway you create more antioxidant proteins. This is essential for battling injury, disease, inflammation, and any kind of cell-level oxidative damage in the body.
Activating the Nrf2 pathway is extremely important, because it regulates the creation of proteins that battle free radicals, also called reactive oxygen species.
A free radical is any molecule that has free electrons. The free electrons in these molecules make them unstable and reactive. To stabilize, they react with other molecules by stealing an electron–damaging the other molecule in the process.
Nrf2 not only helps to rid the body of damaging free radicals and their toxic byproducts, Nrf2 can even help the body repair after the stressors are gone.
Nrf2 is expressed everywhere throughout the body, but it’s expressed the most in the kidneys, muscles, lungs, heart, liver and brain.
There are many theories for why living things age. While we all recognize the symptoms of aging–wrinkles, susceptibility to disease, memory and hearing loss–we don’t know much about what actually causes aging.
One theory for why we age is the Free Radical Theory of Aging (FRTA), first described in the 1950s. This theory argues that free radicals accumulate in the body, cannot be neutralized, and then cause oxidative damage–also known as aging.
Activating cytoprotective pathways through Nrf2 is known to be protective against diseases including cancer. But Nrf2 is also likely to be a major player in increasing longevity due to its antioxidant power and is even known as the ‘guardian of healthspan.’
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