Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) Research Paper - 3

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) - Research Paper Example The truth is there are toxic and non-toxic PAHs occurring naturally in our environment, the non-toxic ones are found in the food we consume (Glenn 1995). They are known as Phytochemicals and are available not only in vegetables but also fruits, grains and several other plants used as foods. These are essential for our health when cooked and consumed appropriately (Sommerburg 1998). This document will discuss the benefits of consuming abundant vegetables in our diet to prevent chronic diseases. Phytochemicals are the bioactive non-nutrient compound found in vegetable. Almost 5000 phytochemicals are estimated to be identified but more are still deemed to be unknown, limiting the full knowledge of the vegetable benefits to our health, suggesting that there could be more benefits. In our day to day activities, our cells are constantly exposed to a lot of oxidizing agents, some toxic and some beneficial to our life. These are the normal PAHs and are found in air, water or the food we consume, some are even being metabolically produced within the cells. Optimal physiologic conditions in our bodies require a balanced state a balanced state of oxidants and antioxidants (Block 1992). Excessive oxidants production causes imbalance which leads to oxidative stress which mostly affects the chronic bacterial, parasitic and even viral infections. This causes serious oxidative damages to the bimolecular substances mainly the proteins, lipids and DNA increasing the risk of chronic disease s like cancer and even cardiovascular disease. Consumption of sufficient antioxidants slows down or even prevents this oxidative stress in our bodies. Vegetables are the known source to have a wide variety of these antioxidant compounds, these may be phenolics or carotenoids which helps in protecting cellular systems from damage due to the oxidative stress, reducing the risk of chronic diseases (Hung 2004). An evidence to show that the compounds found in