New animal studies explain why supposedly healthy supplements like beta-carotene
ID: 94840 • Letter: N
Question
New animal studies explain why supposedly healthy supplements like beta-carotene could exacerbate a dread disease Antioxidants are supposed to keep your cells healthv. That is why millions of people gobble supplements like vitamin E and beta-carotene each vear. Todav, however, a new study adds to a growing bodv of research suggesting these supplements actually have a harmful effect in one serious disease: cancer The work, conducted in mice, shows that antioxidants can change cells in ways that fuel the spread of malignant melanoma-the most serious skin cancer-to different parts of the body. The progression makes the disease evein more deadlv. Earlier studies of antioxidant supplement use by people have also hinted at a cancer-promoting effect. A large trial reported in 1994 (pdf) that daily megadoses of the antioxidant beta-carotene increased the risk of lung cancer in male smokers by 18 percent and a 1996 trial was stopped early after researchers discovered that high-dose beta-carotene and retinol, another form of vitamin A, increased lung cancer risk by 28 percent in smokers and workers exposed to asbestos. More recently, a 2011 trial involving more than 35,500 men over 50 found that large doses of vitamin E increased the risk of prostate cancer by 17 percent. These findings had puzzled researchers because the conventional wisdom is that antioxidants should lower cancer risk by neutralizing cell- damaging, cancer-causing free radicals But scientists now think that antioxidants, at high enough levels, also protect cancer cells from these same free radicals. "There now exists a sizable quantity of data suggesting that antioxidants can help cancer cells much like they help normal cells," says Zachary Schafer, a biologist at the University of Notre Dame, who was not involved in the new study. Last year the scientists behind the melanoma study found that antioxidants fuel the growth of another type of malignancy, lung cancer.Explanation / Answer
1.Cancer study
2.Study was first conducted on mice later on few human trials were also made.
3.Antioxidants is the independent variable whose value does not change.
4.Tumor is the dependent variable whose spread changes acccording to the factors present.
5.Yes control was used in the study as A scientific control is an experiment or observation designed to minimize the effects of variables other than the independent variable. This increases the reliability of the results, often through a comparison between control measurements and the other measurements.
6.Yes it was published in a scientific journal named"translational medicine".
7. a. Targeting the production of antioxidants by cancer cells leading to its cure.
b.Antioxidants fuelling malignancy.
8.Zachary Schafer and Dr.Bergo
9.This is true as in the above study it has been defined that extra antioxidants taken may trigger the cancer cell growth and their metastasis to other parts of the body.So cancer patients or those who are susceptible to tumor tendency should not take antioxidant supplement.
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