Understanding Antioxidants and Free Radicals. A Brief Look at Chemical Bonding To understand the way that free radicals and antioxidants interact, you must first understand a bit about cells and molecules. Cells are composed of many different types of molecules.
Molecules consist of one or more atoms of one or more elements joined by chemical bonds.
As you probably remember from your old high school days, atoms consist of a nucleus, neutrons, protons and electrons. Electrons are involved in chemical reactions and are the substance that bonds atoms together to form molecules. The innermost shell is full when it has two electrons. When the first shell is full, electrons begin to fill the second shell. When the second shell has eight electrons, it is full, and so on.