In recent years the health and medical industries have praised the antioxidants in foods such as green tea, garlic, beans, strawberries, and walnuts for their benefits. However, a recent study suggests that they could actually promote the rapid spread of cancer. Antioxidants given to mice with the disease actually protected cancerous cells and promoted their speedy growth and infection of other organs.
The study's findings were published in the journal Nature. It was conducted by the University of Texas (UT).
Sean Morrison is from the University of Texas Southern Medical Center. His team inserted lab mice with humans' cancerous skin cells. They gave the experimental group a common antioxidant called N-acetylcysteine (NAC), according to Nature World Report. Meanwhile, the control group received no treatments.
The experimental group that was given NAC later had blood with higher levels of cancer, and more tumors. Furthermore, the tumors had grown bigger.
While antioxidants can protect normal cells they safeguard cancer cells even better. Antioxidants function by kicking out free radicals, which form after oxygen combines with particular molecules.
Free radicals steal electrons they require from living cells, due to their lacking one of the subatomic particles. Antioxidants help to prevent this process.
However, antioxidants donate a needed electron to free radicals. This ends their chain reaction of cellular damage, yet can also protect cancerous cells in the process.
UT researchers noted that their study suggests that cancer patients should be treated with "pro-oxidants," according to UPI. That would reduce metastasis, the spread of cancer in the primary tumor to other regions of the human body.
Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables could still be critical in reducing cancer rates. One theory is that they prevent the cancerous units from forming.
This video shows foods that are super high in antioxidants: