Glutathione and Antioxidant Supplements

jholand says:

This question is one of debate in the scientific community, although this does not stop the more… entrepreneurial amongst us from selling anti-oxidant supplements.

Antioxidants hit by pessimistic report.

A Cochrane Collaboration team has concluded that commonly taken antioxidant supplements may do more harm than good. Their review encompassed 68 randomized controlled trials with 232,606 participants who took various combinations of beta carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and/or selenium or a placebo or had no intervention. [Bjelakovic G and others. Mortality in randomized trials of antioxidant supplements for primary and secondary prevention: Systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA 97:842-857, 2007]
The reviewers concluded:

**There was no convincing evidence that antioxidant supplements have beneficial effects on overall death rate.

**In 47 trials with 180,938 participants, the antioxidant supplements significantly increased the death rate.

**Beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E given singly or combined with other antioxidant supplements significantly increase mortality

**The potential roles of vitamin C and selenium on mortality need further study.

**Considering that 10% to 20% of the adult population in North America and Europe may consume the assessed supplements, the public health consequences may be substantial.

**Because the study examined only the influence of synthetic antioxidants, its findings should not be applied to the potential effects of eating fruits and vegetables.
References :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17327526&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_docsum