Researchers now agree that destructive molecules known as free-radicals are responsible for many of the age-related degenerative diseases conditions in the human body – for example, wrinkles, memory loss, arthritis, atherosclerosis (which causes heart disease) and cancer-causing mutation in cells. The good news is that you can limit the damage inflicted by free-radicals and therefore affect the rate at which you age by making changes to your diet and lifestyle to reduce the levels of free radicals in your bloodstream.