Abstract
Antioxidants are widely considered as being essential for an optimal health so that supplementation with natural antioxidants is advised for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and other various pathologies, whereas supplementation with vitamin pills may not be advised, as discussed below. By clicking “antioxidant miracle” on a web search engine one gets about 2 million results. This mainly relates to vitamin E and C, the former being lipid-soluble and the latter being water-soluble, which are best known by laypeople. Antioxidants neutralize the harmful effects of excessive formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) (Godfraind, 2004). They share this quality with major therapeutic agents such as dihydropyridine-type calcium channel blockers (Godfraind, 2004) that are established drugs for treating cardiovascular diseases. In this opinion paper, we intend to compare some cardiovascular outcomes of dietary antioxidant supplements versus calcium channel blockers (CCBs).
Highlights
Antioxidants are widely considered as being essential for an optimal health so that supplementation with natural antioxidants is advised for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and other various pathologies, whereas supplementation with vitamin pills may not be advised, as discussed below
NADPH serves as electron donor and oxygen as electron acceptor for the production of reactive oxygen species (Bedard and Krause, 2007)
reactive oxygen species (ROS) may be directly measured by electron spin resonance, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) may be assessed by colorimetric or fluorometric methods, other biomarkers may be assessed by ELISA
Summary
Antioxidants are widely considered as being essential for an optimal health so that supplementation with natural antioxidants is advised for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and other various pathologies, whereas supplementation with vitamin pills may not be advised, as discussed below. Both clinical and experimental evidences indicate that ROS play an important role in the development of several diseases including cancer (Chandel and Tuveson, 2014) and hypertension (Godfraind, 2004). The use of dietary supplementation with antioxidants has been studied in several diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular pathologies.
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