Dubious benefits
Antioxidant -- a word once only used in the parlance of specialists -- has gained a certain notoriety in the lay press, and among the health-conscious US public. These are chemicals like vitamins A, C and E, which certain scientists believe scavenge oxygen compounds known as free radicals, that can damage cell DNA and turn the cells cancerous.
But the whole issue recently blew up when a large study of lifelong smokers in Finland revealed no apparent protection against lung cancer from daily supplements of beta carotene -- a popular health food that the body converts to vitamin A -- and vitamin E. In fact, what other researchers found even more worrying was that the report published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that men in the study who took beta carotene supplements were more likely to get lung cancer than those who did not. A more recent 4-year study led by E Robert Greenberg of Dartmouth University, of over 700 Americans showed that moderate doses of vitamins C and E and beta carotene did not prevent the growth of polyps in the colon, which may develop into colon cancer.
Despite contradictory claims, several researchers are unwilling to give up on vitamins, and the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine, Marcia Angell and Jerome Kassirer, warned the public and the media not to overinterpret the negative findings.
Several other ongoing trials could throw more light on this issue. The first results of an experiment involving 22,000 male physicians who have been taking regular doses of beta carotene will be available in 1996.