The 100 trillion (give or take a few) cells in your body are little energy machines....and in the process of making energy, they produce by-products, much like a car engine produces exhaust. The by-products are thousands of little "free" oxygen atoms or molecules that contain an unpaired electron. This imbalance makes them very unstable (radical)...so they must search out another atom from which to "steal" an electron.

Stephen Cherniske describes it this way in his book The Metabolic Plan: "Imagine there's a dance where everyone has a partner. The room is "stable", and everyone is happy. Suddenly the door opens, and here's this fellow without a date. Not only is he alone (unpaired), but he's incredibly good-looking. So this guy goes over and steals some other guy's date. That guy is now unpaired (and angry), so he tries to cut in on another couple. And before you know it, the entire dance floor is filled with guys fighting over the available girls. In your body, free radicals wreak similar havoc."

As you are reading this, every single one of your 100 trillion cells is sustaining free radical "hits"...up to 10,000 of them every day. That's every cell, getting hit 10,000 times a day by these nasty, damaging atoms/molecules!

The really bad news is that it's not just our own cells producing "exhaust" that creates free radicals. Get a load of these other causes: diets low in highly varied plants, machines and factories spewing out free- radical pollution, increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation, and cigarette smoke. Every puff on a cigarette sends tens of billions of free radicals deep into your tissues. And the National Cancer Institue estimates that more than 50,000 Americans are killed by secondhand cigarette smoke every year.

Free radicals are greatly responsible for the wrinkles and lines on your face. But beneath the surface of your skin is where the real damage is caused by the sun