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For a long time, I've held to the belief that supplements cannot take the place of a healthy diet. There's so much in food -- meaning whole, fresh, unprocessed stuff -- that we don't even know about, or that works best in the combinations in natural food. I've been impressed, over and over, at how simple things we can do to take care of ourselves -- by our food choices, by getting lots of exercise and sleep, wearing our seat belts, not smoking, drinking moderately if at all -- turn out to be the best prevention for all kinds of diseases (or in the case of seat belts, premature deaths).
Remember the craze for vitamin E back in the 1980? Or mega-doses of vitamin C to ward off everything from cancer to the common cold? Debunked. Now yet another piece of research suggests that taking nutritional elements (in this case, anti-oxidants), isolated from their natural comrades and in huge quantities, can be harmful. The suggestion here (not yet demonstrated in humans, mind you) is that the anti-oxidants studied can actually increase the growth of cancerous tumors by protecting those cells in the same way they're supposed to protect normal cells.
Supplements act like pharmaceutical agents when taken in these quantities, and should be regarded with the same care and skepticism. Do they do anything good? Do they do anything bad? How do we know -- has this been proven by rigorous studies, not casual anecdotes?
Antioxidants Accelerate Lung Cancer Progression in Mice
Remember the craze for vitamin E back in the 1980? Or mega-doses of vitamin C to ward off everything from cancer to the common cold? Debunked. Now yet another piece of research suggests that taking nutritional elements (in this case, anti-oxidants), isolated from their natural comrades and in huge quantities, can be harmful. The suggestion here (not yet demonstrated in humans, mind you) is that the anti-oxidants studied can actually increase the growth of cancerous tumors by protecting those cells in the same way they're supposed to protect normal cells.
Supplements act like pharmaceutical agents when taken in these quantities, and should be regarded with the same care and skepticism. Do they do anything good? Do they do anything bad? How do we know -- has this been proven by rigorous studies, not casual anecdotes?
Antioxidants Accelerate Lung Cancer Progression in Mice
