Antioxidants
Are Antioxidant Vitamins Helpful or Hurtful?

There was a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that concluded that taking antioxidant vitamins actually increased your risk of death, instead of making you healthier.  This was reported in the Washington Post, without proper explanation of the JAMA article and its conclusions.  It is true that studies, including the ones that JAMA referred to, show that antioxidants do NOT help users live longer.  However, what was not pointed out by the Washington Post is that theses studies all used synthetic vitamin A and E, not natural sources.

Synthetic Antioxidants Degrade Cells
 

Furthermore, most other studies over the years on antioxidants have used SYNTHETIC antioxidants and have consequently shown that these synthetic antioxidants degrade your cells over time and cause adverse health effects.  For example, studies have shown that synthetic beta-carotene actually increases your risk of cancer, while natural beta-carotene decreases it!  The message is clear:  synthetic antioxidants should not be consumed – they can and do harm your health for many reasons. 

Synthetic Vitamins Concocted In Labs
 

Synthetic vitamins, including antioxidants such as vitamin A, B, C & E, are all concocted in labs, just like drugs are.  In fact, most B vitamins are coal tar derivatives.  Most ascorbic acid or synthetic vitamin C is made by fermenting corn sugar into sorbitol, then hydrogenating it.  After this process, acetone (i.e. nail polish remover) is added to break the molecular bonds which then creates isolated, crystalline, ascorbic acid.  Does this sound like something that is good for your body?

Synthetic Vitamins Treated As Foreigners in the Body
 

These synthetic vitamins have been shown to be treated like foreign substances in the body, just as drugs are.  This means that the body has to work hard to detoxify the body from them, even though most of us are overloaded right now with detoxifying our bodies of numerous environmental chemicals.  This tends to cancel out or even outweigh any positive benefits the nutrient might bring to your body. 

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