Although antioxidants have been widely profitable in the dietary supplement industry for its provided benefits, new research has found that these supplements can actually worsen cancer in patients.
The common claim behind antioxidants is their ability to protect users from cancer. According to IFL Science, "this is supposedly because they can counteract other molecules known as 'reactive oxygen species' or 'free radicals' that can be created in our cells and then damage DNA, potentially leading to cancer."
Writer Victoria Sanz-Moreno explains:
"My colleagues at King's College London and I recently published research in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute highlighting that free radical are not just damaging agents. Our work adds to the growing evidence that antioxidant supplements can, in some circumstances, do more harm than good."
Furthermore, Newsweek explains that researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Center found that these antioxidants can actually speed up the spread and growth of cancer cells in mice:
"For the study, researchers tested the prevention of metastasis - the spreading of cancer cells - by transplanting human skin cancer cells, or melanoma, to mice. Some of the cells had been treated with N-acetylcysteine (NAC), an antioxidant sometimes used to treat patients with HIV/AIDS and in nutritional supplements, reports The Washington Post. Another group of mice was given nothing."
CRI Director and Mary McDermott Cook Chair in Pediatric Genetics at UT Southwestern Medical Center Dr. Sean Morrison explains:
"The idea that antioxidants are good for you has been so strong that there have been clinical trials done in which cancer patients were administered antioxidants. [...] Some of those trials had to be stopped because the patients getting the antioxidant were dying faster. Our data suggest the reason for this: cancer cells benefit more from antioxidants than normal cells do."
