With regard to antioxidants — and maybe nutrient supplements in general, for that matter — we seem to have done what we generally tend to do: go from an action excessive in one direction to an equally excessive reaction in the other. I have lamented this tendency –for popular opinion, even seemingly among so-called experts, to behave like a block of cosmic flotsam subject to Newton’s third law of motion — before now. I am advising against it again, and proposing something of an attitude adjustment.
Going back perhaps to Linus Pauling, we fell in love with the idea of antioxidants, and their potential to do extraordinary things for our health. We then fell in love with a sequence of pageant members, beginning with Pauling’s own favorite, vitamin C, or ascorbic acid, and then moving on to beta carotene, vitamin E, lycopene and others. When specific intervention trials focusing on each of these in turn let us down, we were encouraged — from some rather bully pulpits of both biomedical science and pop culture — to renounce our love. Many have presumably done so.
It’s almost certainly a mistake — of the “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” variety.
For one thing, we were certainly right about the relevance of oxidative damage, and the value in reining it in. Oxidation is a key aspect of immune system function, and crucial — as an aspect of the biochemical warfare in which our bodies engage — in defending us against enemies foreign (pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and parasites) and domestic (like rogue, mutated cells). Like all forms of combat, though, this one is prone to collateral damage. In this case, it’s injury to, and accelerated aging of, our various cells. Oxidation is both a necessary defense and a major contributor to chronic, degenerative disease. At the extreme, it may be thought of visually as the manifestation we all know best: rust. Excessive oxidation rusts us from the inside out.
Antioxidants, from food and generated by the body itself, are vital for containing this damage. Although we seem not to like such subtleties when discussing health, and certainly not when discussing nutrition, the fact is that both oxidation and antioxidation are good, and both are bad. What we need is balance.
In general, modern living does not provide that balance. We eat diets of highly processed foods stripped of nutrients, rather than a rich variety of plants, intrinsically rich in myriad antioxidants, some of which we perhaps haven’t even named yet. We are exposed to solar radiation in a world where we have depleted the ozone layer, and subject to sedentariness, sleep deprivation, chronic stress and environmental toxins as well. Oxidation tends to get the upper hand.
Lifestyle can ameliorate this. An optimized, plant-rich diet is powerful medicine overall, and a powerful antioxidant tonic into the bargain. The other key elements of healthy living — avoiding toxins like tobacco, being physically active, getting enough sleep, mitigating stress and cultivating social connections (think love and friendship) — contribute mightily as well. But we all know the rub: That’s easier said than done! What, then, of antioxidant supplements, which for many are easier done?
Before providing an answer, I hasten to note that I am privileged to serve on several scientific advisory boards, and even chair a couple. When I say privileged, I mean it most sincerely, and least because such efforts inevitably involve compensation for time and effort. The real privilege is to converse in concentrated doses with very smart, deeply knowledgeable people, and learn a whole lot from them.
In that mix is a company focused solely on the cultivation of microalgae as a source of both food and nutrients. This is truly an exceptional operation, as it encompasses elements of both farm and factory. The algae — Spirulina, which you have likely heard of, and Haematococcus pluvialis, which you almost certainly have not — are crops, and are grown in what can only be called a farm, and a stunningly pristine farm at that. The crops are then converted into powder or capsules on site, and that’s where the factory element comes in. Production derives from a uniquely holistic, self-contained supply chain that I suppose might best be called “farm-to-vial,” as an analog to the farm-to-table food movement.
There is a lot to the microalgae story. This diverse group of plant-like, unicellular organisms has considerable potential as a sustainable source of both food and fuel. That will have to be a story for another time, however.
Back to antioxidants. Haematococcus is a blue-green algae when growing in conditions it likes. Stress it, however, and it turns red. The reason is an antioxidant called astaxanthin.
When conditions turn inhospitable in whatever way, Haematococcus encysts itself, and fills the cyst with astaxanthin it manufactures. Soaking in astaxanthin, the organism becomes just about immortal. The cysts have survived years and decades in harsh environments, and if ever a salutary environment returns, the cyst degrades, and perfectly viable microalgae emerge, show their delight by turning blue-green again, and go back to making a living like nothing ever happened.
One remarkable thing about astaxanthin, then, is that it works in nature, for an actual organism, as a stand-alone defense. Haematoccocus does not fill its cysts with a cocktail of compounds; it fills then with astaxanthin. We have long been looking for an antioxidant that could confer health benefits acting on its own, but have mostly studied moieties that, in nature, work in concert with others. Maybe astaxanthin is what we have been looking for.
The point here is certainly not that astaxanthin, or any isolated nutrient, is a panacea — none is. The point is that we should avoid a rush to judgment in any direction. While astaxanthin is unlikely to make us nearly immortal (as it seems to do for its native host), a literature is fast burgeoning showing diverse, human health benefits. I am looking on with great interest, and encourage you do likewise. Go here and type “astaxanthin,” and nearly 1400 peer-reviewed publications are retrieved.
We once believed that hormone replacement at menopause was good for all women. When we challenged that proposition, we did so, inevitably, with Newtonian bluntness, and wound up cultivating a culture-wide aversion to all varieties of hormone replacement for all categories of women. Colleagues and I published a paper demonstrating that this failure to distinguish baby and bathwater had potentially cost as many as 90,000 women their lives over a 10-year span. I hasten to note that a new campaign has been launched to help put a stop to that calamitous toll.
We should decline invitations to replace fatuous love for antioxidant silver bullets with equal and opposite antipathies, and adjust our attitudes to embrace greater subtlety. We have only just begun to explore the considerable contents of this tub — and should allow for the likelihood of both customary occupants.
More from U.S. News
Pharmacist Recommended Vitamins and Supplements
8 ‘Superfoods’ and Their Alternatives
Antioxidants, Antipathies and Attitude Adjustments originally appeared on usnews.com
