http://www.beautysecretsspiritsoulbo...dex.php?id=116

Many articles like the one above shaked my faith in antioxidant and vitamin pills which have been promoted by the multibillion nutrition industry.

The bottom line for me now is to use varied and balanced diet and trust our bodies to do the job of maintaining our health through an incredibly complex process which science does not understand as yet.

how about you? do you take antioxidants?

It looks like this article was written in '07 or thereabouts?
(based on the age of the links at the bottom).

This was before Dr. Mercola went into the supplement business to make money.

Today he is appearing on Dr. Oz and marketing astaxanthin, as a miracle antioxidant.

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/surpr...ement-you-need

I have used grapeseed extract for many years. It along with some other things, like Yerba Mate, and green tea, have greatly reduced spider veins and varicose veins in my legs, which is a visible effect. (so I assume they help other things).
I also switched from fish oil to Krill oil (which contains naturally, some astaxanthin).

I don't take alot of Vit E, but I do use 500mg of Ester C, and it really helps keep my gums nice.

So I do think antioxidants are important, and useful but .. I don't think overdoing it is necessary.

Thank you, mrsD. It is great that you could pinpoint definite benefits of some antioxidants that you have taken.
I have been taking a dozen of supplements without negative side effects and my general health is good. However I have no way to assess that the supplements are doing any thing positive or negative.
The more I dig in the technical papers the more lost I become.
For example I found the following paper entitled ‘ The quercetin paradox’ which concludes that quercetin is antioxidant which becomes oxidant in the process.
http://www.ildcare.eu/Downloads/proe...Boots_ch06.pdf
also
http://recomp.com/blogma/2011/02/que...idant-network/
also
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:....pone.0013880?

In vitro, quercetin seems to be protective at low doses but damaging at high doses, but only God knows what is low or high!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18329008
Lack of robust protective effect of quercetin in two types of 6-hydroxydopamine-induced parkinsonian models in rats and dopaminergic cell cultures.Kääriäinen TM, Piltonen M, Ossola B, Kekki H, Lehtonen S, Nenonen T, Lecklin A, Raasmaja A, Männistö PT.
SourceDepartment of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Kuopio, P.O. Box 1627 (Yliopistonranta 1C), FIN-70211 Kuopio, Finland. Tiina.Kaariainen@uku.fi

Abstract
In the present study, we examined the ability of a flavonoid quercetin to prevent 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-induced oxygen radical formation and cytotoxicity in vitro and neurotoxicity in vivo. Quercetin (10-100 microM) had an acute significant antioxidant effect against the 6-OHDA-induced (30 microM) oxygen radical formation in catecholaminergic SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells. Moreover, in these cells, quercetin at 10-50 microM had a significant protective effect against 6-OHDA though at 100 microM it was itself harmful to the cells. The possible effect of quercetin in preventing neurotoxicity in unilateral medial forebrain bundle (full nigral lesion) or striatal (partial lesion) 6-OHDA rat lesion models of Parkinson's disease was studied in three treatment schedules: a 7-day pre- or post-treatment or their combination. Rotational responses to apomorphine (0.1 mg/kg, subcutaneously) and d-amphetamine (2.5 mg/kg, intraperitoneally) were assessed at weeks 1 and 2 post-lesion. Quercetin had no consistent neuroprotective effect in either model at 50-200 mg/kg once a day or 100 mg/kg twice a day. Furthermore, no protection was observed in tyrosine hydroxylase positive nigral cell numbers, striatal fiber density or in striatal levels of dopamine. These in vitro and in vivo results cast doubt on the theory that quercetin exerts reliable neuroprotective effects against 6-OHDA-induced toxicity. In vitro, quercetin seems to be protective at low doses but damaging at high doses.