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Antioxidants cause death? Huh?

Is conventional medicine at it again? Check out http://tinyurl.com/32875f <===DO NOT USE

Sorry, I was trying to shorten the link. Here's the full link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070227/...s_hazards_dc_1 <===USE THIS ONE INSTEAD

Moe,
The link doesn't work.

Billye

billye, here is the article that was on aol news.

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles...00010000000001
Antioxidant Supplements Tied to Death Risk

By Michael Conlon
Reuters
CHICAGO (Feb. 27) - Beta carotene and vitamins A and E, antioxidant supplements taken by millions to fight disease, may actually raise the risk of death, a review of 68 studies on nearly a quarter-million people said on Tuesday.

http://cdn.news.aol.com/aolnews_phot...27180509990004 Mario Tama, Getty Images
According to a new study, taking the antioxidant supplements Beta carotene and vitamins A and E can be dangerous.

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The finding drew fire from critics who said it was flawed and based largely on studies of people who were already chronically ill before they were treated with the supplements.

Tuesday's report related only to synthetic supplements and not to fruits and vegetables in everyday diets which are natural and contain less concentrated levels of antioxidants, said the study from the Center for Clinical Intervention Research at Denmark's Copenhagen University Hospital.

While the review did not pinpoint any biochemical mechanism that may be behind the increased death risk, it may be that "by eliminating free radicals from our organism, we interfere with some essential defensive mechanisms," the study concluded.

Antioxidants are believed to fight free radicals, atoms or groups of atoms formed in such a way that they can cause cell damage.

"Beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E given singly or combined with other antioxidant supplements significantly increase mortality," the study found. It said the increased death risk is about 5 percent higher than those not given supplements and that figure is probably conservative.

It also found no evidence that vitamin C increases longevity and though selenium tended to reduce mortality, more research is needed on that topic.

Balz Frei, director of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, said the study and the data studied are both flawed because more than two-thirds of the previous research that was examined involved people with heart disease, cancer or other risks who were being treated to see if the supplements worked.

"This kind of approach does not work," he said. "Over the years it has become clear from these clinical trials that antioxidants don't work in disease treatment."

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The Natural Products Association, a supplement trade group, said the study "stands in stark contrast to large actual clinical studies that have not demonstrated any increased risks."

Daniel Fabricant, a vice president of the association, said reviews of existing studies, called meta-analysis, often work but in this case the process was biased because "there are many other factors that could contribute to mortality that were simply not assessed."

The study, published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, said that 10 percent to 20 percent of adults in North America and Europe -- up to 160 million people -- may consume the supplements involved.

"The public health consequences may be substantial," it said. "We are exposed to intense marketing" which holds the opposite view of what the researchers found, it added.

"We did not find convincing evidence that antioxidant supplements have beneficial effects on mortality," concluded the study. "Even more, beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E seem to increase the risk of death."

Here is another point of view:

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/news...aminstudy.html

Quote:

The “meta-analysis” published in JAMA, which is a statistical analysis of previously published data, looked at 815 antioxidant trials but included only 68 of them in its analysis, Frei said. And two of the studies excluded – which were published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and the prominent British medical journal Lancet – found substantial benefits and reduced mortality from intake of antioxidant supplements.

“If these two large studies had been included, none of the reported effects on increased mortality would have been significant, with the exception of the effects of beta carotene,” Frei said. “And the research showing a higher incidence of lung cancer in smokers who take supplements of beta carotene or vitamin A is old news, that’s been known for many years. Very high doses of vitamin A are known to have multiple adverse health effects.”

All the new study really demonstrates, Frei said, is a bias toward identifying studies or research that show harm caused by antioxidants, and selective removal of research that shows benefits.

The mean duration of the reviewed trials was 2.7 years, so the implied conclusion is that taking antioxidant supplements can kill people in less than three years, Frei said. It is absurd to think that vitamin supplements could have such an effect, he said, and no biological mechanism has been identified that would explain it. In addition, the causes of death were not considered or were not determined in many of the studies reviewed, and may include accidents or other causes that have nothing to do with diet or oxidative stress.

This is similar to the flawed but highly publicized meta analysis of Vit E that came out a while back.

When I find this article--I am going to research who paid for it.

Sounds like history is repeating itself?

Eggs are bad/eggs are good. Fish is bad/fish is good.
Can't win!

Thanks folks for balancing out the picture! - j

I also think it's important to bear in mind--

--exactly which antioxidants were being studied.

Vitamin E is a potent antioxidant. But it is also well-known to increase platelet agreegation time and to promote the bleeding response. As such, large doses of it might not be a good idea in certain populations vulnerable to bleeding disorders; it would likely increase their mortality, say, if they hemmoraged from accident.

Vitamin A also has deleterious effects in very large doses, which have been alluded to in the previous posts.

However, did these studies talk about other antioxidant classes, from phytochemicals in colorful fruits and vegetables to those in green teas? I find it much harder to assume that consuming these in a natural form would increase mortality--they would be much more likely to reduce it. And I don't think that most people out there consuming antioxidants are limiting their choices to those mentioned here. Many larger level studies need to be done, involving many other substances.

I, too, wonder, who paid for this study. (The Synthetic Hormone Pharmaceutical Board?)

And, as usual, the worst form of the vitamins are apparently used. A quote in the article in my paper struck me: "supplements are synthetic..." Hmmmm.

rose

well..it ain't stopping me from taking my supplements! :p