As an antioxidant, the flax oil's lignans can help boost the body's immune system, keeping harmful, disease-causing germs from damaging the cells. These plant hormones are also believed to block the formation of hormone-based tumors. Lignans also boost the productions of a substance attached to estrogen and carries it out of the body. " Because of their highly unstable nature, free radicals increase damage to cells of the body, thus contributing to the aging process. In order to neutralize these free radicals, your body uses certain vitamins, minerals, and enzymes - collectively known as antioxidant antiaging. All these nutrients come from the food you eat, but they may also be available as supplements in the form of pills or capsules. To achieve maximum stability, free radicals therefore steal electrons from other molecules around them and in so doing, destroy the cell membranes and weaken the cell. Free radicals cause a chain reaction of "electron stealing" because the minute they start taking away electrons from other molecules, those molecules become free radicals themselves. According to their findings, the overall best sources of antioxidant fruits under the berry category are dog rose, sour cherry, blackberry, strawberry, raspberry, crowberry, blueberry, and black currant. Under the antioxidant fruits category are pomegranates, grape, orange, plum, pineapple, lemon, dates, kiwi, Clementine, and grapefruit. A recent food Olympics has been conducted and out of the 100 different varieties of foods, vegetables, and nuts, 20 antioxidant rich foods came out at the top. This list of foods contained most of the very rich antioxidant foods as ranked by nutrition scientists at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and reported by the University of Alabama website on November 1, 2004. Human beings are one of the few organisms that cannot produce their own herbal antioxidants for the body's use. That is why we have to depend on our diet in order to get our dose of herbal antioxidants. Herbal antioxidants are of course found in fresh produce, fruits, and vegetables. A large number of members of the berry family are excellent sources of herbal antioxidants.