{"id":10604,"date":"2011-08-03T15:19:14","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T19:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=news&p=10604"},"modified":"2011-08-03T15:19:14","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T19:19:14","slug":"recommended-reading-a-critical-and-funny-view-of-antioxidants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2011\/08\/03\/recommended-reading-a-critical-and-funny-view-of-antioxidants\/","title":{"rendered":"Recommended Reading: A Critical (and Funny) View of Antioxidants"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Antioxidants don’t work, but no one wants to hear it,” writes Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious diseases specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, in Slate<\/em><\/a>. Sepkowitz reviews the sparse scientific knowledge about antioxidants and then discusses the difficulties faced by physicians who “were slow to jump onto the antioxidant bandwagon and are slower still to jump off.”<\/p>\n

“Few medical remedies have a more sterling reputation” than antioxidants, he writes, but<\/p>\n

there is a wee small problem in our ongoing anti-oxidize-athon: As it turns out, we have no evidence that antioxidants are beneficial in humans. (Though if you’re a Sprague-Dawley rat, there’s hope.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sepkowitz explains to Slate<\/em> readers that a free radical isn’t “a fiery Berkeley politico” and observes that if physicians try to warn their patients about the lack of evidence “it’s like we’re denying the benefits of sunshine and fresh air.” Citing evidence is fruitless, he says:<\/p>\n

…double-blinded medical studies are counterbalanced, in America, by a parallel system of peer review in the form of a nonstop confab of health-themed talk shows, print magazines, and blogs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Antioxidants don’t work, but no one wants to hear it,” writes Kent Sepkowitz, an infectious diseases specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, in Slate. Sepkowitz reviews the sparse scientific knowledge about antioxidants and then discusses the difficulties faced by physicians who “were slow to jump onto the antioxidant bandwagon and are slower still to jump off.” “Few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[933],"class_list":["post-10604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-prevention","tag-antioxidants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}