12019
0
Posted on May 14, 2010, 6 a.m.
New research suggests that taking high doses of antioxidant supplements can increase genetic abnormalities in cells, and thus may actually increase the risk of developing cancer.
Instead of helping to prevent cancer, it appears that taking high doses of antioxidant supplements may actually increase the risk of developing the disease. Professor Eduardo Marbán, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, and colleagues found that high doses of antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamins C and E, trigger the development of genetic abnormalities that increase the likelihood of cells becoming cancerous. "Taking one multivitamin daily is fine, but a lot of people take way too much because they think if a little is good, a lot must be better," said Professor Marbán. "That is just not the case. If you are taking 10 or 100 times the amount in a daily multivitamin, you may be predisposing your cells to developing cancer, therefore doing yourself more harm than good."
Tao-Sheng Li, Eduardo Marbán. Physiological Levels of Reactive Oxygen Species are Required to Maintain Genomic Stability in Stem Cells. Stem Cells. 2010 May 4. [EPub ahead of print]
