Aug 22 2008
Do Antioxidant Tablets Work?
Antioxidants are important if you are serious about preventing certain illnesses. A healthy diet has always been considered the way to go when it comes to being healthy in general. Everyone is advised to include at last five servings of fruit and vegetables in their daily diet.
The reason that fruit and vegetables are so important is that they provide the body with antioxidants that can fight free radicals that could otherwise increase your risk of developing certain diseases. Recently many people have claimed that antioxidant tablets are a good way to include antioxidants in your diet. So, do they work?
Clinical Studies
The idea of using antioxidant tablets is a new one and studies are being conducted to test the effectiveness of antioxidant tablets in combating cancer, heart disease, strokes, and high blood pressure. At the moment there is not enough evidence to suggest that antioxidant are completely effective at preventing any of these diseases.
This is based largely on a study that was published showing that two test groups, one taking antioxidant tablets and another taking placebos, showed no difference in terms of lowered risk of the diseases antioxidants are supposed to prevent.
From this study it would appear that antioxidant tablets did not lower the risk of disease as people who took the tablets had just as much chance of developing the same diseases as the group of people on placebos. This doesn’t seem like encouraging news but not all hope is lost.
Before you flush your antioxidant tablets down the toilet stop to consider the findings. It is only one study that has been published. Other studies are still ongoing and could soon prove that there are significant benefits to taking these supplements.
On the other hand there is no harm in taking supplements. You could well be benefiting from the supplements. If you believe that taking supplements are important then keep taking them and make sure that the rest of your diet also includes healthy amounts of antioxidants. Fruits and vegetables are your best source of antioxidants, as well as green, black, and certain herbal teas.
An antioxidant a day could truly keep the doctor away. The evidence to suggest that antioxidants are key to preventing cancer, strokes, heart diseases, lowering blood pressure, and other degenerative and age related diseases is very strong. People who want to have a good quality of life in their later years would do well to have plenty of antioxidants in their day to day diet.