[Johnnyvee]

(07-07-2018 08:22 AM)Tribunus Wrote:  

Interesting study compares anti oxidative qualities of green, green decaff, white and black teas processed from the same tea cultivar.
They rank them in this descending order of anti oxidation potency: green ≥ low-caffeine green > white ≥ black Orthodox > black CTC.

They also found that white tea had the highest metal chelating activity, followed by black. I'm not an expert on this but I believe this means it could help reduce heavy metals load in the body.

Yeah I think they can help eliminate heavy metals also like lead and mercury. But it`s mostly the chelating, or stabilizing unstable metal chemical bonds that has the health bringing anti-oxidant effect.

Free radicals are just chemically unstable atoms or molecules. (Metals or otherwise.) They have either to few or to many ions. (In the context of chemical stability.) So they will tend to react with other atoms or molecules in for example human cells. This in turn will set off a chain reaction that causes damage to cells, including the chromosome. So antioxidants are simply molecules (enzymes or redox) that have the ability to neutralize these chemically unstable compounds. Usually by either enzymatic reduction, or by donating one or more electrons in order to again stabilize the free radical compound. This is how for example certain vitamins function as antioxidants.