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Taking dietary supplements full of antioxidants could help cancerous tumors grow
- HelloMcFly 3y agoRecommended reading on this includes "Do You Believe in Magic" by Dr. Paul Offit, the Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (certainly one of the best children's hospitals in the world).
- thenerdhead 3y agoInteresting, picked up a used copy. Thanks for the recommendation!
- ck2 3y ago> this discovery surprised researchers No it didn't, not to anyone paying attention https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/n-acetyl-cysteine-warning-shot https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/n-acetyl-cysteine-... https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/exercise-and-vitamins-now-wait-minute https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/exercise-and-vitam... https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/antioxidants-and-cancer-backwards https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/antioxidants-and-c... https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/evidence-piles-antioxidant-supplements-are-bad-you https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/evidence-piles-ant...
- refurb 3y agoExactly, it’s been well known for a while. There was a paper comparing physical fitness between two groups - one got high dose vitamin C, one didn’t. The ones take high dose vitamin C saw a far worse improvement in physical fitness. Why? Metabolism generates free radicals. The body used that as a signal to drive the changes that result in improved physical fitness. It’s one of those things where a given molecule has both positive and negative implications for the body.
- thenerdhead 3y agohttp://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/05/11/0903485106.short?rss=1 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/05/11/0903485106.shor... It is worth noting the sample size, the focus on insulin sensitivity on healthy males, and lack of consideration of other beneficial antioxidant health outcomes.
- PaulHoule 3y agoIt's a major problem in anti-aging that many forms of "senescence" disable cancer cells. You might think you want more active stem cells to heal nicks and cuts and stuff like that but you don't want them running amok.
- fmitchell0 3y agoHere is the actual paper: https://www.jci.org/articles/view/169671 https://www.jci.org/articles/view/169671
- adrian_b 3y agoAs usual, the title is not accurate, as there is no "fuel". What happens is that the antioxidants, including vitamin C, stimulate the tumors to grow blood vessels. The tumors with better blood vessels grow faster. So the antioxidants that are good for you are also good for tumors. Therefore they must be avoided whenever cancer is identified and you have to take medication that is bad for you, but hopefully even worse for tumors. Some anti-tumor medication has precisely the purpose to prevent the growth of blood vessels. This may stop the growth of the tumor, but it is also obviously bad for your other blood vessels, so it can be used only to gain time until some other form of treatment becomes feasible.
- cbm-vic-20 3y ago> Therefore they must be avoided and you have to take medication that is bad for you, but hopefully even worse for tumors. Is that basically what chemotherapy is?
- adrian_b 3y agoYes.
- woadwarrior01 3y agoMoreover, the paper specifically mentions administering Vitamin C, Vitamin E and N-acetyl-cysteine. The article casually throws in Vitamin A, Selenium and Zinc into the mix, none of which are mentioned in the paper.
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- legulere 3y ago
- jasfi 3y agoDoes this mean that people undergoing chemo shouldn't have any supplements at all? Lutein, for example, is a strong antioxidant but also has anti-cancer properties. Edit: thanks for the replies!
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoWhen my mother in law (RIP) was going through treatment for lymphoma, the doctors did in fact advise against taking supplements. Because -- either doing nothing (waste of $$), doing "something" that could likely discourage cell death and therefore maybe cancer, or doing... who knows what? because under-regulated and studied. Chemo is rough, for sure.
- ramoz 3y agoI was advised not to take supplements or antioxidants during chemo. "The healthier you are, then so too is your cancer." was something that threw me off a bit. Edit: just to be clear, at the point in which you already have cancer, the most important treatment is the science of chemotherapy. Antioxidants can in turn “strengthen” tumor cells (just as they do regular cells) and cause chemo resistance/refractory.
- brink 3y agoSounds like a mythical riddle. "To survive, you must go knock on the doors of death."
- taylodl 3y agoChemotherapy is deadly. The idea is to administer enough to kill the cancer but not kill the patient. It's literally a well-regulated and well-monitored poison. Don't get the wrong idea - chemotherapies are among the best therapies we have for treating cancer. I'm not anti-Western medicine or anti-chemotherapy or anything like that, it's just we have to recognize the nature of the beast and what it is exactly that we're doing when administering it.
- adamredwoods 3y ago
- bArray 3y ago> Common antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C, selenium, and zinc, can stimulate the growth of blood vessels in cancer when taken in excess. Is this to say that once you have cancer, these are bad, or that they promote the possibility of getting cancer. The second part is because we are continuously getting cancerous cells, but for the most part our immune system can deal with them before they become a problem.
- ttul 3y agoIf you are doing chemotherapy, your oncologist may tell you to avoid vitamin C and other anti-oxidants precisely because the chemotherapy drugs rely on oxidation to kill the cancer cells.
- adrian_b 3y agoThe paper says nothing about promoting the possibility of getting cancer. Only after the cancer is advanced enough that the cancerous cells have formed a tumor, according to this study the antioxidants promote the growth of the blood vessels of the tumor, which is very undesirable, because the better vascularized a tumor is, the faster it grows. When there is no cancer, promoting the growth of the blood vessels is a desirable effect.
- datavirtue 3y agoIn the article they clearly state that this applies for those with elevated risk. Those without cancer. Seems to make sense. If a tumor starts growing you won't know it. Meanwhile the antioxidants are helping it.
- adrian_b 3y agoLike many decisions in nutrition, any choice has both advantages and disadvantages. Judging from the results of this paper, avoiding antioxidants may decrease your risk of death because some undetected cancer has grown faster before being discovered, but it may increase your risk of death due to some cardiovascular disease.
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- inciampati 3y agoWhat about small molecule antioxidants like melatonin?
- notyoutube 3y agoI wonder what that means for vegan people taking "large spectrum" vitamin supplements, e.g. veg one ?
- criddell 3y agoIf you want a laugh, check out the comment section on that page. The Chinese, Biden, Clinton, and Big Pharma are all in cahoots. https://studyfinds.org/dietary-supplements-help-tumors/?show=comments https://studyfinds.org/dietary-supplements-help-tumors/?show...
- thenerdhead 3y agoOther clickbait titles could be "Eating fruit and vegetables accelerates cancer". Which is frankly not true. It requires the BACH1 protein to be present in tumor cells. The claim more simplified would be something like excess antioxidants help protect cells and thus grow. Also reasoning as to why you don't take high-dose antioxidants when going through treatment. Because it can interfere through protective mechanisms. The irony of this research is this somewhat brings up the age-old debate on Pauling's cancer work yet again.
- ToucanLoucan 3y agoIt's astonishing how BAD basically all media reporting around science is. Anytime I see a headline about science I assume it's bullshit and investigation within to the actual science behind it, it basically always is.
- thenerdhead 3y agoIf only everyone could be as good a writer as Derek Lowe or Ed Yong.
- adamredwoods 3y agoExactly! https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/curcumin-will-waste-your-time https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/curcumin-will-wast... >> More than that, a quick search will reveal that there are plenty of people ready to sell you curcumin tablets in every variety, for a list of ailments longer than most people's legs. Everything from Alzheimer's to upset stomach - curcumin is good for what ails you, apparently. >> So what do you get when you look closely at the molecule and its activities? Well, for one thing, curcumin's stability and pharmacokinetics are absolutely terrible.
- Octokiddie 3y agoThe original study reports only in vitro data. Call me skeptical about the sweeping conclusion in the title. https://www.jci.org/articles/view/169671 https://www.jci.org/articles/view/169671
- torcete 3y agoI think that these results fit very well with the theory that cancer cells obtain energy from the fermentation pathway (as opposed to the oxidative pathway)
- anentropic 3y agoHow so? It just says "We’ve found that antioxidants activate a mechanism that causes cancer tumors to form new blood vessels" which doesn't suggest anything about different metabolic pathways
- torcete 3y agoOh, it just speculation of course but they mention that many of these supplements have antioxidants, which is the opposite effect of what you would like to have. Given that the fermentation theory is correct. In other words, you don't want to inhibit oxidation, you want to promote oxidation and inhibit fermentation.
- PaulHoule 3y agoNote by definition antioxidants are chemically reactive substances that want to react with ROS but may also want to react with other things. Your body uses oxidation to do important tasks. For instance one way immune system cells destroy invaders and cancer cells is by oxidizing then to death. To second order your body has antioxidant systems that try to maintain the right level of activity. N-Acetyl Cysteine affects the metabolism of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutathione https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutathione for instance and what your body does with it in the liver. Your body should try to maintain the right level of antioxidant activity as much as it can if you are consuming more or less vitamins.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mckravchyk 3y agoDoes it include D-3 and K-2?
- bigfryo 3y agoSurprise surprise surprise!
- solomatov 3y agoWhich is completely unsurprising since ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species) are used by organisms to kill cancer cells, bacteria and other foreign stuff in the body. P.S. I am neither a doctor nor a biologist.
- adamredwoods 3y agoThere is so much debate to this, I consider this article clickbait. Consider this clinical trial that suggests the exact opposite: >> High Doses of Vitamin C with Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/clinical-trials/search/v?id=NCT02905591&r=1 https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/clinical-trial... Other studies: >> Targeting cancer vulnerabilities with high-dose vitamin C https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526932/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526932/ Other studies of uses of supplements: >> Taken together, these results suggest that combinational chemotherapy with ascorbic acid and paclitaxel not only does not block the anticancer effects of paclitaxel but also alleviates the cytotoxicity of paclitaxel in vivo and in vitro. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23176798 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23176798 Overall, talk to your oncologist before combining any supplements with your chemotherapy.
- thenerdhead 3y agoAll situational. But I'm sure Pauling is laughing in his grave. See https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-central/blog/2020/yun-cantley-vitamin-c https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-cent... and specifically Mark Levine's pioneering work https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15068981/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15068981/ which adds to this debate.
- rsync 3y agoThis is not new at all. Nick Lane writes very specifically about this in “power, sex, suicide”. Specifically, ingested antioxidants have no pathway to enter the cell where we believe antioxidants would be helpful… And even if they could they would almost certainly hurt us by interfering with essential cell signaling mechanisms. Bad cells need to die. You should not get in the way of this process. In fact, you should probably encourage it. The experimental basis for this dates to the early 80s. Yes, that means the entire antioxidant edifice has been bullshit the entire time.
- nikolay 3y agoI am amazed how stupid we people are. We really want to put things into only two categories - something is either good or bad. This applies to cholesterol and many other things. ROS are bad in some cases, and are a mechanism for protection in a lot more. It's good to have antioxidants before facing a pathogen, but not good when you're already sick. There are many studies showing that taking antioxidants before exercise negates its health benefits and many others. Also, really, I'm not sure what taking stuff orally really do. For example, I lot of people take collagen nowadays, but once in the stomach, it just get broken down into amino acids, so, it's not different than any complete protein. Unless you get antioxidants via IV or use some liposomal form, I doubt there's much effect of just concentrated nutrient that's not in its natural form, which naturally absorbable and not destructed in your stomach.
- DoubleDerper 3y agoDr. Brad Stanfield - one of the few medical professionals who've challenged Dr. David Sinclair about his promotion of NMN and Resveratrol - has a couple of well researched posts about N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) that are worth watching if you're into this stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvX6ivegQRE&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvX6ivegQRE&t=1s