Posted on 05/05/2010 7:29:16 AM PDT by Daffynition
Hold off on the megadoses of antioxidant vitamins like C and E. A study by researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute shows that you can overdose on these health aids, and the result could be mutated stem cells that cause cancer.
There's no cause for alarm if you're staying within suggested doses of your vitamins or nutritional supplements. This study looked only at what happens when people take much more than the standard amounts of antioxidants.
Researcher Eduardo Marbán and his colleagues' stumbled on the antioxidant problem while they were researching tissue engineering for human hearts. Using stem cells, Marbán and his team are working on a way to grow heart tissue to repair damage caused by heart attacks. Patients who suffer from damaged hearts undergo two quick procedures: First, the researchers collect a few cells from the patients' hearts that will be used to grow the replacement tissue; Second, the new tissue is injected, with no dangers of rejection since it's grown from the patients' own body.
According to a release about their project:
Marbán and his team accidentally discovered the danger of excessive antioxidant doses while seeking a way to reduce the genetic abnormalities that occurred naturally when the scientists sought to multiply human cardiac stem cells . . . In laboratories, stem cells are often grown in a Petri dish culture than is composed of 20 percent oxygen, whereas cells growing inside human tissue are exposed to just 3 to 5 percent oxygen. But Marbán's team of researchers became frustrated because the higher concentration of oxygen in lab-grown stem cells resulted in 9 percent of the cells being rejected because of genetic abnormalities.
"We sought to counter that oxidation problem by adding high doses of antioxidants directly to the cells," Marbán said. "That's when we made the serendipitous discovery that there is a danger zone for the cells exposed to antioxidants to develop genetic abnormalities that predispose to cancer."
This is good to know, but when will we find out the really cool stuff, like whether this project to repair damaged hearts will work? Clinical trial results on the heart procedure are expected in early 2011, so you might have a heart repaired with stem cells as early as 2012.
Man those look good!
“
Hold off on the megadoses of antioxidant vitamins like C and E.
A study by researchers at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute shows that
you can overdose on these health aids, and the result could be mutated
stem cells that cause cancer.
“
“In everything, moderation”
As some old guy said about thousands of years ago.
Of course, I do violate the rule with some of my “guilty pleasures”.
E.g., too much time on FR!!!
"Just so long as me face stays pri-iy."
Quick! Let’s regulate them and tax supplements out of business! We need a Comprehensive Bill immediately. Oh, there is already one on the table slipped in under the Bank Reform Bill? Never mind...
To leap to their conclusion is very un-professional and un-scientific. This is in laboratory experiments not in the world.
Yeah. And I also remember when charcoal broiled steaks caused cancer. And Coca Cola. Apparently Linus Pauling was just LUCKY to live to be about 500!!
This isn’t news. I saw the same sort of warnings about vitamins C and E many years ago, and take daily doses of 125 mg and 100 iu respectively as a result. But it’s very difficult to find these vitamins in small doses. I can only get the E 100 iu by mail order, and Vitamin C in tablets of less that 250 mg each are virtually nonexistent, except in a few chewable formulations for children (which are very expensive). I buy 500 mg vitamin C and cut the tablets into quarters.
It’s consistent with previous in vivo research that found negative effects from larger doses of these vitamins.
I believe in moderation in all things; especially moderation.
Thanks Chuck Schumer.
Regulation isn’t the problem in this case. It’s free market sources, driven by consumer ignorance, that has resulted in the wide availability of excessive-dose formulations and the extreme scarcity of healthy-dose formulations. Believe me, the government is not stopping supplement makers from producing and selling smaller dose formulations. Government *has* historically restricted higher dose formulations of some supplements, even when there was strong demand for them, and some serious research indicating higher doses were beneficial. Government restrictions on folic acid dose sizes are certainly responsible for thousands of extra cases of spina bifida and anencephaly. Eventually the government obstinacy was overwhelmed by scientific data and it not only lifted the 400 mcg limit on over the counter folic acid supplements, but also began requiring manufacturers of many processed grain foods to add folic acid to these products.
BS
Interesting. Do you know anyone who it taking it?
Sad, isn’t it! ;(
It seems once in a while, I can go days with my BP going up ... then when I read this stuff ... I want to go ballistic.
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