The Dangerous Hype of Antioxidants
By Marlene Merritt, DOM, LAc, ACN
Returning to the theme I've had in past articles of things that we
"know" for a certain to be true (and then often are not), let's look at
antioxidants. We all seem to
know that free radicals are bad,
and that antioxidants mop them up and prevent damage to us, slowing down
the aging process, reducing the incidence of cancer and other major
illnesses like heart disease.
There are just a couple of problems with this theory, the biggest one being that the research shows the complete opposite.
Let's look at some basics first. Free radicals are generated by
normal metabolism and yes, they can damage proteins, fats,
carbohydrates, DNA and other biological material. The research started
after World War II, when scientists saw the damaging effects of the
ionizing radiation from atomic weapons, and came to the (correct)
conclusion that the damage from radiation and the damage seen in normal
tissue can have the same source — free radicals. We have built-in
mechanisms to deal with free radicals, but some free radicals always
make it through the defenses, and consequently, damage slowly builds
(aging) until the body breaks down and we die. Basically, the
researchers saw damage, and free radicals were in the area. Knowing that
free radicals damage macromolecules, the conclusion was drawn that free
radicals caused the damage and sped up the aging process.
This was a really convenient theory, because the logical jump would
then say that if you reduce free radicals, then you must reduce the
damage caused from them — the aging process, cancer, heart disease, and
the like.
The problems started with the research — the initial studies were
done adding large amounts of free radicals to petri dishes, seeing the
damage to the macromolecules, and then concluding that the same thing
happened in the human body. The next, and very large problem with this
free radicals equals aging theory is that free radicals actually perform
a function in the body and it's a vital one: fighting pathogens like
bacteria, increasing apoptosis, and fighting cancer (white blood cells
churn out tons of free radicals to bolster the immune response). Taking
antioxidants blunts and neutralizes this response. Do you really want
that?
Another problem is this: there are no clinical studies conclusively
showing that production of free radicals leads to chronic disease and
aging. It's mainly on the strength of studies on worms, fruit flies and
rats that we have all the hype generated for resveratrol supplements,
1,000 mg of ascorbic acid fizzy drink packets, and the constant
recommendation to take alpha-tocopherol (also known as vitamin E).
Unfortunately, not only are there no clinical studies showing that
free radicals cause the problems mentioned, but taking antioxidants,
especially as supplements, can actually harm you. In 2008, the
Cochrane Collaboration
(which is a group of independent scientists who scrutinize the
legitimacy and accuracy of studies) looked at 67 different studies with
nearly 400,000 participants and came to the conclusion that there was
"No evidence to support antioxidant supplements to prevent mortality in
healthy people or patients with various diseases."
1 In fact,
it also said "Antioxidant supplements need to be considered medicinal
products and should undergo sufficient evaluation before marketing." How
many multi-level marketing companies do you think are doing that? Or
over-the-counter supplement companies? Why should they? We all keep
repeating the mantra that antioxidants must be healthy and keep buying
them — the estimates are that in high-income countries, approximately
one-third of the population takes antioxidant supplements!
Not only does taking antioxidants seem to make no difference for cardiovascular disease
2, but it also has been linked to increased rates of lung cancer
3,4, gastrointestinal cancer
5, prostate cancer
6, reduced apoptosis
7 and increased mortality
8. Adding antioxidants can also impair ovulation
9.
The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association
both state that "the scientific data do not justify the use of
antioxidant vitamin supplements for CVD risk reduction." The
HDL-Atherosclerosis Treatment 2001 study showed that the addition of
antioxidant vitamins blunted the rise of protective HDL. The
Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention study reported an
increase in cerebral hemorrage for patients taking merely 50mg of
alpha-tocopherol daily (July, 2003). Most damning, in 2007,
JAMA
reported on the largest ever meta-analysis of antioxidant peer-reviewed
studies (47 low-bias trials with over 180,000 participants) and stated
in conclusion that, "Treatment with beta carotene, vitamin A, and
vitamin E may increase mortality." Yikes.
The reason so many studies are being done is because there was first
the observation that people who smoked a lot and had large amounts of
vitamin E from food in their diet seemed to have lower rates of cancer.
Hence, the attempt to see if alpha-tocopherol could lower rates of
cancer.
So what's going on? The first problem is with the assumption that
free radicals are bad for you. As I stated before, your immune system
relies on the release of free radicals from phagocytes (as an example)
to destroy the engulfed pathogens of macrophages and granulocytes. They
are also involved in cell signaling (redox signaling) and the crucial
function of apoptosis. The black-and-white thinking of good/bad is an
oversimplification of life in general and is inevitably an erroneous
road to start down.
The second problem is the reductionist theory that we have about
nutrition. Let's use alpha-tocopherol as an example. This is what's
known as vitamin E, but in actuality, the full E complex contains
multiple tocopherols, tocotrienols, (8 antioxidant levels in total to
protect the vitamin complex), selenium, xanthine, and lipositol, plus
other compounds. Yet some researcher decided that alpha-tocopherol was
the active ingredient in this entire complex, named that vitamin E and
now alpha-tocopherol is made in a lab which puts 1000 percent of the RDA
into gel caps, and you actually think that's vitamin E as it's found in
nature. It's not — you would never find alpha-tocopherol isolated and
in large amounts like that in food.
Ascorbic acid has the same story. Vitamin C is a full complex,
including not just ascorbic acid, but also bioflavenoids, rutin, and
multiple other compounds. But in naming ascorbic acid "Vitamin C," you
can now manufacture it in a lab, and make pills with 1,000 mg of
ascorbic acid in them, labeling them as vitamin C. When was the last
time you saw a gram of ascorbic acid in nature? Right, never.
The third problem comes from the thought process of "If some works,
more must be better." Like it says above, we are now manufacturing these
isolates in amounts way beyond how they would be found in nature, and
without any of the other compounds that would come with them if they
were in a food source. Do you think that could possibly be contributing
to the negative results being seen in those studies? There's also the
observation about the transition time for some of these antioxidant
isolates. Alpha lipoic acid stays in the body for approximately 24
minutes. Ascorbic acid is also known for quickly flushing out through
the urine — people trying to take high doses have to keep ingesting it
all day. If these antioxidants were so vital and the body needed so much
of it, why would it allow this to happen?
I'm not saying that we don't need antioxidants, but I am saying that
taking synthetic, high-dose isolates has the very real potential of
harming us. I tell my patients again and again that what has gotten us
into trouble is when we mess with our food. We take cows off of grass
and feed them corn (losing the Omega-3s), we take the fat out of food,
we don't process grains properly, we insist soy is healthy, even when it
has been consistently shown that it's not (fermented soy excluded), we
overeat fructose because we don't eat seasonally and think that agave
nectar must be healthy because it's sold in health food stores, we eat
carbs in insane amounts, and we think we know enough about nutrition
that we can isolate fractions out of food and think that's better than
nature.
It's like we've lost all common sense about food. Then we think some
marketing term like "nutraceuticals" must mean that the extra-strength
"pharmaceutical" dose of nutrition is even
more helpful to our malnourished bodies. But it's clearly being shown, especially in this field of antioxidants, that that's
not
true. Yes, eat the fresh fruits and vegetables, with their full
complement of vitamin complexes. Buy organic if you can for more
nutrient density. If you take supplements, or sell supplements, make
sure they're actually food concentrates, not just large amounts of
synthetics with some food added. If you need suggestions as to where to
find those, let me know.
Don't believe the marketing hype — for your long-term health, avoid mega doses of synthetic vitamin isolates.
References
- Bjelakovic G, Nikolova D, Gluud LL, Simonetti RG, Gluud C.
Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy
participants and patients with various diseases. Cochrane Database of
Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD007176
- Vivekananthan DP, Penn MS, Sapp SK, Hsu A, Topol EJ. Use of
antioxidant vitamins for the prevention of cardiovascular disease:
meta-analysis of randomised trials. Lancet 2003;361:2017-23
- Omenn GS, Goodman GE, Thornquist MD, Balmes J, Cullen MR, Glass A,
Keogh JP, Meyskens FL Jr, Valanis B, Williams JH Jr, Barnhart S,
Cherniack MG, Brodkin CA, Hammar S: Risk factors for lung cancer and for
intervention effects in CARET, the Beta-Carotene and Retinol Efficacy
Trial. J Natl Cancer Inst 1996, 88(21):1550-1559
- The effect of vitamin E and beta carotene on the incidence of lung
cancer and other cancers in male smokers. The Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta
Carotene Cancer Prevention Study Group. N Engl J Med. 1994 Apr 14;330(15):1029-35.
- Bjelakovic G, Nikolova D, Simonetti RG, Gluud C. Antioxidant
supplements for preventing gastrointestinal cancers. Cochrane Database
Syst Rev 2004;(4):CD004183
- Lawson KA, Wright ME, Subar A, Mouw T, Schatzkin A, Leitzmann MF.
Multivitamin use and risk of prostate cancer in the National Institutes
of Health–AARP Diet and Health Study. J Natl Cancer Inst 2007;99:754-64
- Zeisel, S. J. Nutr. November 1, 2004 vol. 134 no. 11 3179S-3180S
- Miller ER 3d, Pastor-Barriuso R, Dalal D, Riemersma RA, Appel LJ,
Guallar E. Meta-analysis: high-dosage vitamin E supplementation may
increase all-cause mortality. Ann Intern Med 2005;142:37-46
- Shkolnik, K., Tadmor, A., Ben-Dor, S., Nevo N., Galiani, D., and Dekel, N. Reactive oxygen species are indispensable in ovulation, Proceedings from the National Academy of Sciences, January 10, 2011
