Listen Up! Science Raising Scary Questions about Antioxidants

GELFAND’S WORLD--Should we believe everything that the nutritional supplements industry tells us? Some recent studies suggest otherwise. Actually, my computer has been flooded by messages from professional scientists mentioning the new, scary findings. 

We've been propagandized for years about how we should be including all sorts of additives in our diets, among those being the substances referred to as antioxidants. This is in spite of the fact that there isn't much convincing evidence in favo r of our doing so. Now, a couple of recent studies indicate that there may be substantial risks involved in taking large amounts of antioxidants. In particular, recent laboratory studies indicate that taking antioxidants could cause the spread of certain cancers.

The studies admittedly were done in the laboratory using specially bred mice. The so-called scid strain of mouse is useful in studying human cancers because it is incapable of mounting the usual tissue rejection against injected human cells, unlike normal strains of mice. This property of the scid mouse allows researchers to study how human cancers spread, by injecting human cancer cells into these lab animals and then following the course of cell growth and movement through the body. 

One set of researchers in Texas injected human melanoma cells into scid mice. The human cancer cells showed that they could develop localized tumors under the skin, but also showed a limited ability to spread further throughout the body. When the mice were also given antioxidants, the number of tumors that metastasized to other parts of the body went up significantly.  

This is interesting from the scientific point of view, partly because it points in a direction that has been previously suspected. Some tumor cells, when they enter the blood stream, are particularly susceptible to oxidative stress. That's one reason that we can often tolerate localized cancerous tumors without being killed by them. The process of metastasis can be slow and rare, partly because a lot of cancer cells don't survive the journey to other parts of the body. 

But if we artificially interfere with the process by which the cancer cells are put under oxidative stress, such as by dosing animals with antioxidants, then the cells can travel and ultimately survive far away from the site of the original tumor. 

The researchers found just that -- that giving a large amount of antioxidant helped tumor cells to survive as they moved through the body. There were actually two studies published within the past week supporting this view, including the one from Texas and another from Europe.

The main lesson for the consumer is that the effects of dietary supplements can be good or bad, or include both good and bad effects. The conclusion extends beyond antioxidants and includes lots of plant compounds and mixtures. The fact that some substance is found in plants doesn't guarantee which direction the effects will go for us. Even more generally, the fact that a product is natural doesn't mean that it is either good or bad for you. Both hemlock and cobra venom can be bad for you, in spite of their natural origins. Botulinus toxin can kill you dead, or if injected in low doses into the forehead, can reduce wrinkles. It's important to use the correct dose, purity, and point of injection, and that requires a detailed understanding of the mechanism and potency of the substance. 

To carry this argument further, a recent study suggests that commonly used dietary supplements result in around twenty thousand emergency room visits every year in this country. The number of such cases was estimated based on a selection of hospital emergency rooms and patient records. The Scientific American article linked here points out that some of the most potent causes of hospital admissions included weight loss supplements, sexual enhancement potions, and substances ingested by body builders. For some reason, possible heart problems were most prevalent. 

You can find a detailed discussion of this study in Science Blogs. What's particularly interesting to City Watch readers is the political protection that the supplement industry has enjoyed. As the author of the Science Blogs piece points out, one of the current candidates for Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jason Chaffetz (R. Utah), has been a defender of the right of the supplement manufacturers to operate essentially without regulation. 

You may recall that a few years ago, the dietary supplement ephedra, also known as Ma Huang, was banned from the market by the federal government. Ephedra was being used as a stimulant and was heavily advertised to body builders. But it can have its own type of very nasty effects on the heart. The government stepped in when the death toll became intolerable. The problem with ephedra, as with other supplements such as tryptophan, is that the government is very limited in its ability to regulate substances marketed as nutrients. 

We should not automatically attack or defend supplements or food products that have been marketed to the public as beneficial. One of the substances found in curried food has been extensively studied by cancer researchers as a possible anticancer compound. The important element for the educated consumer is whether or not a supplement has been adequately studied under controlled scientific conditions. 

The problem for consumers is that it is hard to evaluate the credibility of information sources. My rule of thumb is that if they are trying to sell it to you over the radio or on some other broadcast infomercial, it's probably not anything solid. If the Mayo Clinic or Yale Medical School tells you something, it is more reliable. And skip Dr. Oz.

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Addenda 

The Crime Scene Investigation television programs at one time included the original CSI as well as CSI New York and CSI Miami. They have all gone to that place that Lenny Bruce referred to as show business heaven, but their current heir is CSI Cyber. This show purports to depict and solve cyber crimes. On Sunday night, October 18, CSI Cyber ran a show whose plot involved a white professor who manages to create racial strife by creating a phony video and putting it up on the internet. The program presented a very negative view of our fellow Americans who are also minorities. I hope that this program will be the object of the protests that it so legitimately deserves. Sorry CBS, but your show was racist. 

On a lighter note, the Jacaranda Music group presented a couple of performances on Saturday night, October 17. The first involved a group of bagpipers performing outside along the Santa Monica cliff side. I didn't make the performance, but I heard it was quite good. I did manage to make it to the second performance, and I can only compare it to an old story I heard long ago about Andy Warhol. It may be apocryphal (that's jargon for something that somebody made up a long time ago, but we don't quite know if it's true). Anyway, the story goes that Andy Warhol spliced together 15 minutes of the Academy Leader. The leader is the clip you used to see in projected films that counted down 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and so forth, before the movie started. So he spliced together that endlessly repeating countdown, called it Skinflick, and showed it to some group of businessmen who were expecting to see some kind of skin flick. Maybe true, maybe false. If you repeat the story, you get to point out that there was a near riot when all that the businessmen got was tease without the please. 

Anyway, that's the effect that Jacaranda's second piece had on Saturday night's audience. It was, as best as my nonprofessional ears can tell you, a run of five notes duh-duh duh-duh duh played in the base side and accompanied with higher ranging strings, this tune taking maybe 20 seconds and repeated over and over again for a little over an hour. Like I said, reminiscent of that Warhol flick (if it ever really happened), but taking 4 times as long. Jacaranda does marvelous things (particularly that percussion evening they did at Villa Aurora) and they are known for their experimental verve, but every once in a while . . .

 

(Bob Gelfand writes on culture and politics for City Watch. He can be reached at [email protected]) 

-cw

 

 

CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 85

Pub: Oct 20, 2015