Slashdot Mirror
Study: Some Antioxidants Could Increase Cancer Rates
sciencehabit writes "Many people take vitamins such as A, E, and C thinking that their antioxidant properties will ward off cancer. But some clinical trials have suggested that such antioxidants, which sop up DNA-damaging molecules called free radicals, have the opposite effect and raise cancer risk in certain people. Now, in a provocative study that raises unsettling questions about the widespread use of vitamin supplements, Swedish researchers have showed that moderate doses of two widely used antioxidants spur the growth of early lung tumors in mice."
Since when mice need antioxidants?
Also, cancer cells are more susceptive to oxidative damage due to their generally higher cell division rate. This is also why ionizing radiation usually damages cancer cells more than regular cells.
Most study's only find what they want/paid to find. The question now is who is correct? We are told to trust scientists that they are objective and unwilling to compromise ethic's for money. Well now what?
all things in moderation
flood your system with too much of something is always bad
I did read anywhere in the article that taking vitamin E makes you die younger. This is more like the contraceptive pill argument. If you think you are susceptible to certain cancers, avoid. Otherwise, the benefits may be worth it.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
blows monkey chunks, doesn't it? it's like reading a Web site designed for first graders, blown up to Barney font size w/Dick-and-Jane layout appropriate for vision-disabled, ADD-riddled kiddiewinks
we should stop putting unnatural things into our bodies that should only be enjoying god's creations
Yeah, all the great things god created, like Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Clostridium tetani, Variola virus, Poliovirus, let's put all that stuff in our bodies, not those evil vaccine things!
Antioxidents are an interesting idea. A whole industry has built up around their healthy properties. However, it transpired that the only evidence of their efficacy was adding various compounds to cells in a petri dish. There was no evidence any of this actually worked when swallowed and ingested. Some further research was done recently and could find no evidence that taking these products actually had any affect at all on reducing your chances of getting cancer. For citation purposes, check http://www.dcscience.net/?p=90 and Ben Goldacre's work.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Supplements are just one more useless thing that businesses convince people they need. The only ones that need them are businesses, to make shitloads of money.
If you have a varied and balanced diet and don't suffer from any condition that makes you need a reinforced dose of any particular nutrient, you don't need any dietary supplements.
Eat properly and exercise! It's easier, cheaper, and it works.
no need to be on death row (or pretending we're not) to take advantage of this option. wish granting is not magic but more about resource allocation. as always, be carefull.... & keep in mind the 'last' notion to avoid excessive frivolity.
let's have a round of applause for us helping US relieve the weight of lies on each other http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=scott%20olsen&sm=3
avett http://youtu.be/1F2zl4LqSlg
at least somebody's listening..... guaranteed... thanks again moms..... thank goodness it never ends.... badly
You do realise that was completely debunked years ago?
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Yo Mr Kurzweil,
When is the frckn singularity moment there dude? I'm getting tired of this shit breaking down.
we can keep it.. there are a variety of ways to clean us up including a spiritual metox drift. poopooing stuff that is innocuous at worst is the new corepirate nazi mindphucking funneling system aka one brand of oranges is more than enough for us unchosens
hang on to your hemisheres we're firing all of our guns at once trying to reach crown royal escape velocity (most linked link in history) http://www.globalresearch.ca/weather-warfare-beware-the-us-military-s-experiments-with-climatic-warfare/7561
Everything causes cancer, especially the things that prevent cancer.
now when we're down & out, we're not cornered into the last resort mirror deal where we must tell ourselves we love us. now, our shiny new mirrors 'sense' when we're out of sorts & then tells us that everybody loves us in mirrorville. still not feeling perky? the mirror knows & continue to therapist us until results are remarkable in our ordinary citizen profile. you can program the mirror to tell you exactly who loves you... not alone anymore as promised once a show gets started....
Synthetic vitamins are likely safe for everyone, but fat-soluble vitamins obtained from fish caught in the oceans is probably not when you consider how polluted our oceans are. Mercury, radioactive waste, fertilizer runoff, animal feces runoff, acid rain, and whatever West Virginia feels like dumping this week... all accrue to fish fats that are full of carcinogens and toxins.
Am wondering if these are the naturally occurring forms of the vitamins or the drug company manufactured analogues and chirals found in many "supplements." If that is the case am going to say was already believed because danish researchers did a long term study to see if supplements (Which contained the above) had any effect on lowering cancer rates of smokers. Unfortunately, the research was canceled because the supplement group start showing a significantly higher cancer rate then the control smokers. It was probably a lot harder to find money to show supplements where cancer causing. These fake vitamins are put in all sorts of processed foods to make them more nutritious many of which are left over from drug company manufacturing processes. They would have to be destroyed if they where found to be cancer causing.
....word choice. Some antioxidants are good killers of cancer cells, and some aren't. Like various chemotherapies, you need to know which ones in which combinations and dosages work, and which don't, for a particular cancer.
Been there, done that, works well. This article just sounds like another pharma shill attack on supplements.
Since when sentences verbs?
Everything today will increase your risk of getting cancer, if you tried to live life on a diet that had the least risk of cancer causing agents you would have to starve yourself. Sure maybe this study is right and taking vitamins could increase your risk of cancer but honestly if it wasn't vitamins it could be anything else. Just keep living the life you're living and don't worry about something as stupid as if you took your vitamin A today or not.
like malnutrition on steroids
"Now, in a provocative study that raises unsettling questions about the widespread use of vitamin supplements"
I believe that should be worded, "Now *another* provocative study" After all, there's been a continuous stream of these. For whatever reason, the human body doesn't like being dosed with massive amounts of chemically reactive substances, gee, what a surprise.
You can get the same dose from eating fruit, but that has no known downsides in multiple studies. If you're worried about your health, eat your fruit and veg - like they've been saying forever,
Does it not make sense that if you take abundant amounts of vitamins that they not only affect good cells but also cancer cells looking for a source to help them survive? The old argument that more is better does not work with anti Oxidants or vitamins. I think Steve Jobs was a perfect poster person for a argument against relying on homeopathic remedies for serious health issues like cancer. No doubt eating healthy is key in keeping a body in good shape. But I have never thought taking supplements were a good ideal. For one they lack any oversight on their effectiveness and they also lack strict monitoring of their advertised doses or ingredients. Makes for good profits for these supplement makers and that's about it.
I was going to mod him "troll", but after a few more reads, I decided it was "funny".
This is a common sleight of hand in the pharma (or general 'sickness industry') sponsored mercenary pseudo-science, when they want to "prove" that inexpensive, non-patentable substance X which is actually good for you, "causes" cancer -- they give X to mice bred specifically to develop cancers they wish to blame on X. After the coarse grained form of the "discovery" story is retold in mass media (or on Slashdot), it becomes "X causes cancer."
To see exactly how this sleight of hand works, consider substance X that improves circulation and promotes growth and vitality of blood vessels (e.g. gingko biloba, arganine, etc), which are all the effects normally good for you. But if you get a cancer, then cancer will use the improved blood supplies and stronger angiogenesis to feed itself, hence it will grow faster than if you had poor circulation and suppressed angiogenesis. That is then twisted to declare "X causes cancer." In fact the cancer was caused by the genes that were deliberately bred into this type mice.
More generally, onset of cancer turns values upside down -- what was good for you when you were healthy, becomes bad for you when you get cancer, since cancer will co-opt it for its own growth. What was bad for you (poor circulation, cellular toxins and pro-oxidants, heavy metals, chemo, etc) becomes good for you, since it may affect cancerous cells more than the non-cancerous cells.
A useful analogy illustrating the nature of this reversal of values in cancer, is to consider human society as a (super-)organism, which it is in many ways. In a peacetime, roads and other transport systems are good for the social organism. But in the case of war, the good transport systems often becomes a major downside since the enemy can use those roads to advance its troops and boost supply lines. In contrast, poor transportation in peacetime is bad for the social organism (backward nations). But it is also bad for the potential enemy during war. This can be easily observed on historical examples, such as WWII, where German blitzkrieg conquered the more developed nations, such as France, Netherlands, Poland very quickly, while it got bogged down in the backwards Balkans, with lots of mountains and few roads, and never really had control of those territories (except for the major cities, which were few in numbers). Similarly, in more recent wars, the backwards, mountainous undeveloped Afghanistan (or jungles of Vietnam) is practically impossible to conquer, while the more developed Iraq was overrun in weeks.
Hence, the above style of mercenary "science" using cancer mice to "prove" alleged carcinogenicity of wholesome Vitamin C or E is analogous to mislabeling transport systems and other infrastructure as a national weakness, and advocating going back to stone age, by demonstrating how much quicker the nation can be conquered if their infrastructure is good.
It is also similar to policies which mislabel personal liberty and privacy as harmful and deadly, by showing how terrorists (or drug dealers, crazies, etc) can take advantage of those liberties and privacy to cause harm. These are all the same kind of scams as the above "study" scaring people away from the vitamins C and E. All of such scare campaigns are often promoted by the very same people from the same crony front groups/NGOs, as result of natural synergies of interests -- a need to condition and herd the sheep with common scare tactics.
I actually find these kinds of "studies" quite useful, since they help me identify what is good for me -- it is always the stuff that the sickness industry is trying to scare me away from (e.g. fat, meat, eggs, bacon, cholesterol, tobacco and other ancient medicinal/entheogenic plants, etc). Further, as a rule the greater the efforts and lengths they go to with their scare mongering about X, the better X must be for me (i.e. worst for their profits). The most useful one for my health was when it dawned on me to invert "make sure have the regular medical checku
As long as nobody comes and tells me that dark chocolate is bad for me, I will keep an open mind. But if they dare........ I'm plugging my ears shut and listening to nobody.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
Synthetic vitamins have been created for a long time now. They can be as bad as any lab can make them, it does not mean that the real vitamins found in our foods are the same.
Most of the time it appears that the manufacturer is trying to cut corners and come up with some money making scheme, or even try to give vitamins a bad reputation for some twisted reason.
Take ascobic acid being sold as vitamin C. Compared to the real C it is a Very watered down version and very weak.
Standard Process is one of the few who actually make the vitamins from natural foods, which if we ate right would provide the nutrition these bodies need.
I find it very disingenuous to publish research based on synthetic products as if they were the original natural product. My only conclusion is they don't like us using natural products but to only buy what they manufacture. Or not smart enough to see the difference.
Then we have things like ignoring that if you take a certain vitamin or mineral such as calcium you need to balance it with magnesium. Vitamin A needs D and so on. Ignoring the balance can make for nasty side effects.
Of course if you take anything in enough volume that can kill you as well. Take our most precious ingredient water. Drink enough and it will kill you dead. Or air, start only inhaling through your mouth instead of your nose and your nose will eventually get all stuffy and hard to breath through.
So how scientific is scientific? To anyone not "scientifically minded" any statment claiming science can mean the same as "must be correct." In other words the general masses are sitting ducks for nutritional misinformation due to manufacturers lack of understanding of their subjects and or willfull intent.
A more accurate title would say: "When taken in pill form instead of naturally, and in massive doses, Some Antioxidants Could Increase Cancer Rates."
People are being poisoned by under-using di-hydrogen monoxide everyday and they dont realize, until it is too late.
Heh, reminds me of an oldie, but a goodie -
All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot;
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom,
He made their horrid wings.
All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.
Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid.
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did.
All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small.
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.
-- Monty Python
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
"The eight forms of vitamin E are divided into two groups; four are tocopherols and four are tocotrienols. They are identified by prefixes alpha- (-), beta- (-), gamma- (-), and delta- (-). Natural tocopherols occur in the RRR-configuration only. The synthetic form contains eight different stereoisomers and is called 'all-rac'--tocopherol."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_E
So as you can see there is quite a difference between synthetic vitamin-E supplements and the vitamin-E you get from food. I'm sure the same can be said for the normal dietary sources of other antioxidants too.
word.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Just FYI, your diet is supplemented. From flour pumped full of niacin, folic acid and other stuff to salt with iodine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...
Anyway, taking some extra vitamins (like B) is beneficial. Of course, you do not *need* to take them. Just like a house plant - you'll survive.
The problem raised by TFA has nothing to do with taking normal doses of vitamins. It is the "mega dosers" that's the problem.
The original idea that antioxidants will increase your lifespan because of an observation that people with high levels of antioxidants live longer (or observation that cancer patients have higher free-radical levels) is of course ass-backward thinking. Anyone with half a brain could figure that out. Immune system uses oxidants to kill bad cells. Oxidants are also used as markers for immune system. High levels of oxidants is a *signal*, not *cause* of problems. Taking large amounts of anti-oxidants is killing the messenger!!!
The largest oxidative stress on the body is exercise. If you exercise and take anti-oxidants after exercise (like Vitamin C), your body does not benefit from the exercise. This actually has been documented recently. Worse, you may be actually killing yourself as the body is not cleaning up damaged caused by exercise properly.
The bottom line is, your knee-jerk reaction to assume a polar opposite position that "vitamins are bullshit" is similar bullshit as the mega-dosers and their shit understanding of immune signaling.
Few things to remember.
1. a little knowledge is dangerous
2. vitamins, in recommended amounts, are good
3. don't drink distilled water - regular tap water is far better for you.
The Greater Good
Are over medicated suffering from fake disorders ADHD bipolar and autism from vaccines this is why we should stop putting unnatural things into our bodies that should only be enjoying god's creations
I take it God didn't create punctuation.
Just in case you're not simply a troll... you're a hypocrite as well as ignorant. Do you eat any modern foods - bread, milk, cereal, etc? They're all made with "unnatural" things, like preservatives and have gone through "unnatural" processes in factories.
Truth is, EVERYTHING is natural. What can possibly exist which isn't made from naturally occurring materials? Chemicals exist because your God created them. We are MADE OUT OF chemicals. All science does is examine what is already there, and find solutions to problems using - again - stuff which is already there. Stuff "God made".
God made cyanide too, and bacteria and viruses. You can't have it both ways. That house you live in, to protect you from God's diseases and beasts that would kill you, and God's extreme weather that would also kill you, was made thanks to science.
If you believe God doesn't like science, then that's your right. But don't bitch about it on the internet in your comfortable chair. Go live in a cave, like God intended, and stop bothering us normal, sensible people. Remember to take a few sharp stones, if you can find some. If you get into trouble, just pray and all will be fine, I'm sure.
they are called whole foods for a reason. The sugar in fruit is just as bad as any sugar, unless you counter it with the fiber from the fruit. Table salt is made of two compounds, either of which is deadly on its own. Coca leaves cause very few health problems, even with chronic use. We informed potheads also get very grumpy when a study blasts marijuana using results obtained by dosing subjects with huge amounts of synthetic THC.
Hippies and "natural foods" folks are easy to mock, but they have a point -- at least for the moment, it's foolish to assume we understand all the nutritional benefits of every food and how all its components interact with each other and our bodies. That doesn't mean all synthesized compounds are dangerous (e.g: salicylic acid, aspirin, does okay and is more effective than its natural source, willow bark). But just introducing random beneficial compounds into our body in isolation is like sticking a pan of flour in the oven and being surprised when it doesn't bake into a loaf of bread.
http://workouttrends.com/antioxidants-bad-for-me