‘The largely unregulated supplement industry sells a variety of weird and sometimes dangerous stuff that it wink-nudge promises will cure what ails you, but even the most accurately labeled, evidence-based supplements can make sick people much, much sicker.

People who eat diets rich in antioxidants — plants, mostly — are at a lower risk of many illnesses, including cancer. There’s good evidence to support the idea that the anti-oxidants in their diet are protecting them from cancer by attacking mutation-causing free radicals.

But when those anti-oxidants are extracted and turned into supplements, they have a very different effect from the foods in which they’re found. In a new study published in Science Translational Medicine, researchers from the Karolinska Institute report on a study that found antioxidants were responsible for speeding up the growth of melanomas; last year they reported a similar finding for antioxidants and lung cancer.

The Karolinska Institute’s Martin Bergö, a molecular biologist, hypothesizes that antioxidants are protecting cancer cells from free radicals. Cancer cells are particularly vulnerable to “oxidative stress” — the damage from free radicals, and this retards the spread of cancer, unless, that is, you’re megadosing on anti-oxidants…’

Source: Boing Boing