Antioxidants, present mainly in fruits and vegetables, are very popular among the population, since they eliminate the reactive and harmful free radicals that arise from cellular metabolism from the body. However, a new study warns of the risk of taking them in excess, since the additional dose provided by pharmacological supplements and drugs such as acetylcysteine can be fatal to health. According to the authors, vitamins A, C and E ingested unnaturally accelerate tumor development in patients with undiagnosed lung lumps, which normally correspond to smokers.
Previous studies have linked the use of supplements with high doses of beta carotene with an increased risk of lung cancer in high-risk patients, and of supplements with high doses of vitamin E with a greater possibility of suffering from hemorrhagic stroke in the brain and cancer prostate. The present investigation, carried out by the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), has concluded that supplements with antioxidants accelerate the progression of small lung tumors instead of fighting it , as has traditionally been thought.
The authors administered doses of vitamin E and N-acetylcysteine to laboratory mice while maintaining a control group, and observed that animals with early-stage lung cancer experienced considerable tumor growth, which became more invasive . The cancer killed the mice twice as fast as the mice that did not receive antioxidants. However, the mice in the sample already had cancerous lesions, so the results cannot be extrapolated to the appearance of tumors in healthy animals.
For now, their conclusions are based on experimentation with mice and human cells, although they already satisfy some controversial researchers who have always defended the pernicious effect of this compound. Notable among them is James Watson, discoverer of the double helix structure of DNA, who at the time stated that “antioxidants can prevent us from killing cancer cells and curing cancer.”
The study authors advise people with lung cancer to avoid taking these supplements, as well as those with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), for whom acetylcysteine is often recommended.
