A better way would be to supplement the body with the "building blocks" required in order for our body to manufacture its own SOD, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, and other such antioxidant enzymes. The building block nutrients of antioxidant enzymes include the minerals manganese, zinc, and copper for SOD and selenium for glutathione peroxidase. Antioxidants are substances that work on free radicals, or more particularly work to counteract the damaging effects of these harmful oxygen byproducts. Scientists have linked free radicals to the development of degenerative diseases, causing massive cell damage that ultimately results in various disorders, such as cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, heart disease, and much, much more. While it's quite true that there's nothing healthier than including fresh produce in your diet, there is actually another reason why doctors insist on a healthy diet of fresh fruits and vegetables. The answer may lie in antioxidant foods. Antioxidant foods are powerful scavengers of free radicals. The function of antioxidant foods is to hunt down free radicals and destroy them. We hear them mentioned all the time whenever there's a new scientific study being released in the American Health Journal or some such explaining how antioxidant juice from berries can aid in liver function or how antioxidant juice from red wine is the scientific reason behind the French paradox. Antioxidants, it seems, have far more benefits than we realize. The new study on antioxidant red grapes, released in April 9, was conducted by researchers at Creighton University in Omaha. The group of researchers who conducted the study say that a compound extracted from the seeds of red grapes called Activin (tm) is that substance with powerful antioxidant red grapes properties. It seemed that in most major trials designed to see whether taking extra beta-carotene antioxidant supplements could ward off cancer, beta-carotene didn't do a good job at it. Worse, beta-carotene antioxidant supplements and pills seemed to increase rates of cancer for smokers in two large trials. And so, studies began to look towards other sources of antioxidants as possible antioxidant supplements.