Antioxidant and vitamin pills are snake oil
There is a new study by a group of independent US medical researches that antioxidants in pill form are at best worthless and at worst harmful (e.g., by triggering lung cancer). This really shouldn’t be a surprise. We’ve known for decades that biological processes are almost unbelievably complex. Theoretical models often fail when confronted with the reality of a biological organism. A treatment that works in the lab (e.g., a petri dish) seldom works as well or in exactly the same way inside a living body.
This is also true of supplemental vitamins. For example a study titled Multivitamin Use and Risk of Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease in the Women’s Health Initiative Cohorts found
After a median follow-up of 8.0 and 7.9 years in the clinical trial and observational study cohorts, respectively, the Women’s Health Initiative study provided convincing evidence that multivitamin use has little or no influence on the risk of common cancers, CVD, or total mortality in postmenopausal women.
The study’s lead author, Marian Neuhouser, is quoted as saying:
Get nutrients from food. Whole foods are better than dietary supplements.
In other words: Stop wasting your money and risking your health buying multi-vitamin pills. Unless you’ve been diagnosed with a dietary deficiency or medical problem those pills are at best unnecessary and at worst can cause health problems.
See the articles at Science Based Medicine for more information.
h/t Mother Jones