Do Free Radicals Really Cause Aging?

I found this interesting and contradictory to the rumors about free radicals, in this case oxygen species. The acceptance of the radicals-are-all-bad rumor may be due to the knowledge that our basic anaerobic metabolism required the evolution of flavins because of the increase of oxygen in the atmosphere during the early earth.

news.discovery.com...

These much maligned molecules may not be entirely harmful after all. In fact, a new study suggests they could help us live longer. . Conventional wisdom has held for decades that free radicals cause aging, and that antioxidants, which squelch the reactivity of these highly reactive molecules, are a way to slow the process. But new work adds to a growing body of research that suggests the story is not so simple.

In the new study published in PLoS Biology, worms that made more free radicals or that were treated with a free-radical-producing herbicide actually lived longer than normal worms.

Mod Edit: External Source Tags Instructions – Please Review This Link.
From the Terms & Conditions:Proper Attribution for the posting of copyrighted material owned by others is defined as posting a relevant snippet of the online content not to exceed 10% of the entire piece, a properly formed link back to the source website, and a clear indication of the name of the source website

im of the mind that radicals should not be free to roam around without trustworthy adult supervision.