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Antioxidants Blunt Exercise Benefit, Study Shows
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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, thinks this study raises doubts about the benefits of taking antioxidant supplements, but not about the value of these vitamins in the foods people eat.
"We have long held out hope that antioxidant supplements, among them vitamin C, vitamin E, beta carotene, and more recently lycopene and others, would help prevent diseases from the common cold to cancer, heart disease to diabetes," Katz said. "But to date, virtually all of the best research evidence is contrary to this hope."
This study has a counter-intuitive conclusion, namely that antioxidant supplements may actually interfere with the beneficial effects of exercise on insulin sensitivity, Katz said.
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"This is a small and short-term study, and thus cannot tell us definitively that antioxidant supplements are harmful in diabetes or the insulin-resistant state that often precedes it. But that is precisely what the study suggests may be true," Katz said.
For now, there is substantial uncertainty about any health benefits and the potential harms of antioxidants as supplements, Katz said. "But we have no such confusion about the powerful health-promoting effects of wholesome, mostly plant-based diets and regular physical activity."
More information
For more information on antioxidants, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
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Copyright © 2009 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 5/11/2009
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SOURCES: C. Ronald Kahn, M.D., Mary K. Iacocca Professor, Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston; David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., director, Prevention Research Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; May 11-15, 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online
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