Ed note: Dr. Mehmet Oz has been an unfortunate voice hyping fat-burning supplements sending sales skyrocketing. He has been called to task by congress and has undergone searing critiques of his “flowery language” and health claims promoting questionable products. Unfortunately lobbyists have been successful in keeping supplements away from regulation by the FDA>
A multi-billion dollar myth by Dennis Benjamin (thanks to Ed M.)
In the world of food marketing, there is one attribute required to elevate a product to a super-food—the presence of antioxidants. Unfortunately, there is a dirty big secret. They do little or nothing. There is no scientific evidence that they benefit human health. Some have recently even suggested that they may cause more harm than good. Almost half the population in the USA takes supplements containing one or more antioxidants, such as Vitamin C and E—it is a multibillion-dollar business, all for naught.
Type ‘antioxidant’ into Google, and you get 444 million hits. The National Library of Medicine (PubMed) lists 24,379 articles, of which 4277 are clinical trials, and 516 have produced results, some of which are published. I confess that I did not read every one, but the overwhelming majority were studies focused on a single disease, and most used physiological measurements and not outcomes. I could not uncover large studies performed on the general population demonstrating the prevention of any disease or the delay of decay or death. The largest review showed increased mortality with some antioxidant supplements.
How did we get to the point that almost everyone believes that antioxidants are beneficial, from preventing cancer to slowing aging? It began in the mid-1940s as a purely theoretical idea. Being an oxygen-breathing species, we are vulnerable to rusting, and some oxygen molecules split to become ‘free radicals,’ aka reactive oxygen species (ROSs). These highly reactive molecules have both beneficial and potentially detrimental effects. It is somewhat like the phrase we use for the opposite sex—we can’t live with them, and we can’t live without them.
ROS functions in cell signaling, turning various vital cellular functions on and off. They also play crucial roles in cell metabolism, including photo-protection and stress tolerance. They are a normal product of all cells. However, they can also damage DNA, proteins, cell membranes, and other cellular components. This led some to hypothesize they may be responsible for aging and a host of human diseases. None of these hypotheses, including the aging paradigm, have ever been proven.
From its theoretical beginning, despite never being validated, the obvious extrapolation was ‘let’s get rid of them”. Our bodies already have a variety of systems readily available to scarf up these ROSs. The scientific terms for this activity are quench or scavenge. In the typical situation, there is a delicate balance between production and removal depending on the time and place within a cell. But what if that was not enough to remove them? How about adding more from our food or even better supplements and nutraceuticals? Thus, the ‘health’ food store shelves expanded their offerings, and an advertising avalanche convinced us that we could stay young forever. Power to the pomegranate, porcinis, and polypores. (continued)