I, for one, welcome our new consensus overlords.

Unfortunately, what people don't understand is that reality can not be voted upon. This is the same kind of sick and twisted logic that went into The Jesus Seminar. "If we experts all cast votes, maybe we can figure out what is true!" Unfortunately, what you'd probably find is that upon sampling the consensus of the experts on a given issue throughout history, you'd find a wavy, insane line.

And, to sum it up in one word: Phrenology.

Which is the exact opposite of the old consensus!

To the media, perhaps. But not to someone actually reading the literature this stuff is based on.

In response to oxidative stressors, vitamin E can decrease biomarkers of lipid peroxidation, is itself killed, and requires optimal vitamin C status to function most effectively.

I'd like to add a little more context here; Vitamin C is absorbed using the same sodium mediated channel as gluocose. Elevated glucose, whether in the intestines or in the bloodstream, will inhibit the uptake of Vitamin C.

I, for one, welcome our new consensus overlords.

To misquote the Who, "... same as the old consensus overlords!" Though I think that doesn't fit the meter quite as well. :-)

[Exact opposite?] To the media, perhaps. But not to someone actually reading the literature this stuff is based on.

This also would appear to be like global warming, where the alleged "consensus" dissolves somewhat (more or less, depending on the specific question), and one learns ins and outs of the "computer models" which generally produce the dire predictions (and non-dire ones, too, but you don't hear of those, since they tweak and re-run until the desired direness is obtained -- see Sagan's "nuclear winter" for a classic).

But, regarding antioxidants: I suspected as much -- it was clear there was data missing, but, like most people, I don't have the time to dig into it. (Maybe we should have specialized groups of people -- let's call 'em "journalists", perhaps -- who could do that for us, and then write up the results? ;-))

So it seems the issue is with megadoses (of all antioxidants, or just fat-soluable ones? or is there any other kind?) in the absence of adequate vitamin C? Thanks for the clarification, Ryan!

Sure thing! Yeah, it'd be nice if journalists were actually required to have scientific backgrounds to write on scientific topics. Their error rate is phenomenol.

Um... going off the top of my head, I know that there are some problems with supplimenting with fat soluable antioxidants in conditions where there aren't enough water soluable antioxidants. For example, smokers supplementing with Beta Carotine had problems, essentially because smoking depletes the amount of vitamin C in your blood.

On a side note, some artificial forms of fat soluable anti-oxidants are harmful as well. For example, natural vitamin E is D-Tocopherol. The "D" indicates that the molecule has 'handedness.' In the same way that a left handed glove won't fit on your right hand, some organic molecules are 'left handed' or 'right handed' and can have radically different effects, biologically, compared to their twins. The most discussed and possibly most important type of Vitamin E is Alpha tocopherol, though four different kinds of D-tocopherol are found in nature. There are also four different types of d-tocotrienols which are also, for whatever reasons, considered 'vitamin E'. Synthetic Vitamin E, on the other hand, is DL Alpha tocopherol, or a mix of 'left handed' and 'right handed' molecules. Taking in more left handed tocopherol can reduce the amount of the other, useful, forms of vitamin E in your body. Generally speaking, synthetic production of vitamins often produces mixes of D and L configurations for various molecules, while plants and animals tend to produce a single configuration. All our amino acids are of the L configuration, for instance.

That's why it's crucial that your Vitamin E, Beta Carotene and certain other vitamins, are from a natural source.

I mention this because earlier studies, using both left and right handed fat soluable antioxidants (vitamin E and maybe beta carotine as well) showed people having health problems due to supplementation. If you read an older study on anti-oxidants, make sure to note whether natural or synthetic antioxidants are used.

So it seems the issue is with megadoses (of all antioxidants, or just fat-soluable ones? or is there any other kind?) in the absence of adequate vitamin C?

Antioxidants can be fat soluable or water soluable. Water soluble anti-oxidants tend to get washed out of the body very quickly (3-4 hours) and megadoses of water soluable vitamins need to be given on a regular schedule through the day because of this. But they're crucial, as you mentioned. Adding in a little Vitamin B complex, about 25% of the USRDA several times daily, seems to help me and is popularly reccomended, though I haven't read up on the biological role of the B vitamins yet.

There are a number of water soluble antioxidants. Obviously, if you get them from diet you don't want them oxidized (cooked in the presence of oxygen.) Vitamin C (ascorbate) and Citric acid both come to mind. Ascorbate seems to be one of the best and certainly one of the most studied, and has other useful functions such as being the limiting factor in collagen formation (which a number of diseases deliberately destroy.) While ascorbate's role in collagen formation is often ignored by the alternative medicine crowd, I personally believe that it's hugely important (i.e. not all of ascorbate's benefits are due to it's function as an antioxidant) and could support this point if you want. Incidentally, if you do supplement with Vitamin C you might be better off using mixed acid-neutral ascorbates (ascorbate salts such as magnesium ascorbate, potasium ascorbate, calcium ascorbate, zinc ascorbate) since they're more readily absorbed and too much acidic vitamin C doesn't seem to be healthy. I tried taking megadoses of acidic vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and while it was helpful, I also got small mouth ulcers. Acid-neutral vitamin C doesn't have that problem. There are a lot of claims that bioflavanoids such as hesperidin or rutin 'complex' with vitamin C in the body and somehow improve it's function but I've tried taking these in pill form with C and noticed no improved effect.

A person's vitamin C needs vary wildly depending on their health. The current US reccomended daily allowance is based on the amount of Vitamin C required to prevent scurvy. It's pretty low compared to the amount your body can actually use and may actually need.

Good health to ya!

To put things more simply;

Ascorbate salts (acid neutral vitamin C) - good

Ascorbic acid - okay in small doses. Bad for megadosing.

Beta carotine and Vitamin E - only from natural sources and only with vitamin C.

Getting enough ascorbate is more important than getting enough fat soluable anti-oxidants. Fat soluable anti-oxidants can be regenerated by your body as long as you have plenty of Vitamin C.

The B vitamins play some role in this process, but I can't remember what, offhand.

BTW... I don't know whether or not other water soluable anti-oxidants like citric acid or EGCG from green tea (which is touted as a stronger anti-oxidant than Vitamin C) could take the place of Vitamin C for the purpose of regenerating vitamin E or Beta Carotine. It's a good question. I'll look into it in about a week if I have more time then.

Their error rate is phenomenol.

I don't usually point out spelling errors, but that was just too funny to pass up. :-)

That's why it's crucial that your Vitamin E, Beta Carotene and certain other vitamins, are from a natural source.

I was begining to get the suspicion that most the supplements people take might not be quite what they're expecting. Sounds like that might have been right in some cases.

Are these kinds of details on the label? I don't recall seeing such.

I'm impressed by your depth here, Ryan. And you can't get a job in this area these days? Don't mean to pry, just curious.

And I've been drinking a bit of green tea lately, so it's interesting that you'd bring that up.

Are these kinds of details on the label? I don't recall seeing such.

Yes, usually they are. The non-natural suppliments will often be labeled as dl-tocopherol in very small print somewhere on the label. I've asked my parents to throw out at least one bottle because of that. Likewise, those vitamins which are from natural sources will say "from natural sources." Since natural E is usually a little bit more expensive than the non-natural kind, it's to the benefit of companies selling it to advertise the fact, and they typically do.

I'm impressed by your depth here, Ryan. And you can't get a job in this area these days? Don't mean to pry, just curious.

Thanks. :) To be honest, I've never much tried. My goal had been to work in biotech. I'm good with concepts but, frankly, terrible with labwork. Touch the pipette full of ether and it volatilizes and sprays your contents on the counter top. Gram stains should be purple or pink but the way I heat fixed them, they turned out black. And so on. Computers seemed a useful avenue to get into the industry without having to touch any test tubes.

I'd wanted to take an extra year of college but my dad was insistant that I should just jump into the workforce (back during the tech boom) even though I had very few skills. I should just learn on the job. I managed to pick up a little bit about database design and high level scripting languages, particularly actionscript, but the one class I took in Java didn't make me feel comfortable that I knew enough to do productive work in that area.

I'm still tremendously interested in health-related topics and infectious diseases. I did some volunteer and paid work for the local arboretum back in Illinois including an internship with a taxonomist, and I'm pretty decent in terms of my understanding of herbal medicine. Maybe I could get a job related to that. I'm not sure it would pay as much as computer work would. Maybe I should look again, since I have a better skillset than I did in the past. My dad's suggested it on more than one occasion.

I did send out a resume to Abbott labs after college, and one or two other places. But i didn't do the test-tube cleaning jobs while in college that would get me into a lab and have that experience to back me up, so I assume that that hurt me. And also I was tremendously more persistant in regards to my tech career. After all, biotech is certainly going to be reliant on computers.

But I really have no idea where I'll end up. And to be honest, I tend to be rather unfocused.

Regarding green tea - Green tea leaves have one of the highest concentrations of oxalic acid, which some have speculated is bad in large quantities. 10% of kidney stones are formed of oxylates, or oxalic acid which becomes an insoluable oxylate in the kidneys and cannot be excreted. (though it's debated whether some other type of predisposition might have a greater impact here than raw oxylate intake) Ascorbate, despite it's tremendous benefits, seems to have the odd effect of increasing the body's oxalic acid uptake, which may be a bad thing.

One interesting tidbit where the practices of a culture actually have an intersting health benefit; when I was in China milk tea was a common drink. And the calcium in the milk should react with the oxalic acid in the heated tea, forming calcium oxylate, which is insoluable and which your body would not absorb.

It's always interesting when a culture develops what seems like a solution to a problem most people in the culture didn't even know existed. Maybe it's just a coincidence. I don't know.

Cheers,

Ryan

btw. Ascorbate, Vitamin E and SOD (superoxide dismutase, which is made from small quantities of selenium) work synergistically. I was unsure how other antioxidants like green tea extract affected these. Most experiments seem to say that green tea has no effect on those antioxidants. One study found a slightly elevated level of vitamin E due to green tea extract.

So as healthy as green tea is, it doesn't seem to be a substitute for the ascorbate, vitamin E, SOD triangle...

Which does... um, what again? And where does one obtain SOD?

Which does... um, what again?

Sorry. I'll try and be clearer.

Vitamin C and vitamin E work together.

It's bad to have lots of vitamin E without enough Vitamin C to protect it. That's what the research in your original post showed, except the reporter didn't seem to quite understand it.

I was trying to figure out how effective green tea was at doing one of vitamin C's jobs, namely; protecting vitamin E. It turns out green tea is not good for that particular function. So while green tea is healthy, you still might need vitamin C suppliments if;

since all these things lower the level of vitamin C in your blood.

The links I dug up show that green tea, for all its benefits, works an antioxidant in a
different way than vitamin C does. Green tea doesn't seem to substitute for or help with vitamin C's role as a protector of vitamin E.

So no matter how much green tea you drink, you'll still need vitamin C as an antioxidant.

Vitamin C is more than just an antioxidant, of course. It has other funcitons as well. But I'm trying to keep things simple by focusing on Vitamin C's role of protecting vitamin E.

Regarding Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) a powerful antioxidant; here's some cites which hopefully will answer your question.

SOD is probably destroyed by the digestive process if taken directly as a suppliment.

Just got this. Thought I'd post. I didn't know much about Selenium supplimentation and this seems to warn against it since it's too easy to overdose. Seems better to stick with ascorbate (which doesn't cause lasting problems, even if you get way too much).

Dear Dr. Mirkin: Should I take selenium supplements?

If you take selenium pills, you may be increasing your
chances of developing diabetes, according to a report from the
Nutritional Prevention of Cancer (NPC) trial (Annals of Internal
Medicine, August 2007). This study is the largest and longest
available experimental study of selenium supplements and was
done by randomly selecting people for either placebos or
selenium and then checking to see who develops diabetes.
In 1973, researchers showed that selenium protects
against oxidative damage, chemical reactions that damage cells
and shorten life. However, there is a narrow margin between
getting enough selenium to keep you healthy and taking too
much. High levels of selenium bind to and damage many essential
body proteins. In the United States, dietary levels of selenium are
high so there is little chances of developing selenium deficiency.
Furthermore, selenium can be toxic to humans at low doses.
Symptoms of poisoning include loss of hair and nails, tiredness,
nerve or liver damage, and as shown in this study, diabetes.
Selenium over-dosage cause oxidants to be formed in the body.
They block the body's ability to respond to insulin and can even
damage the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. We do not
know definitely that selenium causes diabetes, but until more data
is available, most authorities recommend that people not take
selenium supplements unless they have been tested and shown
to have a selenium deficiency.

Thank you, Ryan! I'll have to check my multi-vitamins for selenium levels. Well, or should if I ever decide to start taking them consistently.