Antioxidant Supplements - Helpful or Harmful?

There was a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that concluded that taking antioxidants actually increased your risk of death, instead of making you healthier. This was reported in the Washington Post, without proper explanation of the JAMA article and its conclusions. It is true that studies, including the ones that JAMA referred to, show that antioxidants do NOT help users live longer. However, what was not pointed out by the Washington Post is that theses studies all used synthetic vitamin A and E, not natural sources.

Furthermore, most other studies over the years on antioxidants have used SYNTHETIC antioxidants and have consequently shown that these synthetic antioxidants degrade your cells over time and cause adverse health effects. For example, studies have shown that synthetic beta-carotene actually increases your risk of cancer, while natural beta-carotene decreases it! The message is clear: synthetic antioxidants should not be consumed as they can and do harm your health for many reasons.

Synthetic vitamins, including antioxidants such as vitamin A, B, C and E, are all concocted in labs, just like drugs are. In fact, most B vitamins are coal tar derivatives. Most ascorbic acid or synthetic vitamin C is made by fermenting corn sugar into sorbitol, then hydrogenating it. After this process, acetone (i.e. nail polish remover) is added to break the molecular bonds which then creates isolated, crystalline, ascorbic acid. Does this sound like something that is good for your body?

These synthetic vitamins have been shown to be treated like foreign substances in the body, just as drugs are. This means that the body has to work hard to detoxify the body from them, even though most of us are overloaded right now with detoxifying our bodies of numerous environmental chemicals. This tends to cancel out or even outweigh any positive benefits the nutrient might bring to your body.

In addition, synthetic vitamins are notorious for lacking all the co-factors your body needs in order to make good use of that nutrient. This means your body will take those other co-factors if possible from other areas of your body where they are needed. This depletes your body of other essential nutrients. The JAMA article about antioxidants also went on to state that vitamins and antioxidants should be consumed from living source fruits and vegetables, although this was grievously omitted from the Washington Post article.

More specifically, the JAMA article said: "To get maximum antioxidant benefit, antioxidant vitamins should be taken in their LIVING SOURCE, WHOLE-FOOD form. In fact, recent studies echo the importance of whole-food vitamins in this regard. Vitamin E has been shown to be a powerful antioxidant. However, if the synthetic form of vitamin E, like alpha tocopherol, is taken, it has the opposite effect contributing to the very problems that the antioxidant is meant to alleviate."

One problem with simply throwing out all antioxidant supplements is that more and more research is showing us the very important role that antioxidants play in protecting us from things like heart disease and cancer and extending our lives. Antioxidants help to quench free radicals, which are unstable molecules that can cause damage in our bodies. These free radicals are produced normally in our bodies, but much larger quantities are produced by most people these days because of excess pollution, environmental toxins, and stress in our modern day lives.

Unfortunately, most people don't get enough vitamins and minerals in their foods today. They often don't eat well enough to begin with, but even if they try to eat well, most of our food today has a lower vitamin and mineral content than our foods at the turn of the century. In fact, some studies have shown a decrease of 50 percent in antioxidants in our foods over the past couple decades. That is a huge decline! In addition to this, we have a much greater need for antioxidants today in order to help protect our bodies against the free radicals caused by toxins and stress.

This means that supplementing with various antioxidants like vitamins A, B, C, and E, as well as DHLA and Green Tea, is still important for many of us today if we want to live long, healthy lives, but we need to choose only whole food supplements. True, 100% whole food supplements with NO synthetic or toxic ingredients are unfortunately the exception, not the rule today, however, they can be found if you take the time to search for them.