Taking dietary supplements full of antioxidants could help cancerous tumors grow | Hacker News Reader

Taking dietary supplements full of antioxidants could help cancerous tumors grow

studyfinds.org

107 pointsSirLJ66 comments

> Common antioxidants, such as vitamins A, C, selenium, and zinc, can stimulate the growth of blood vessels in cancer when taken in excess.

Is this to say that once you have cancer, these are bad, or that they promote the possibility of getting cancer. The second part is because we are continuously getting cancerous cells, but for the most part our immune system can deal with them before they become a problem.

The paper says nothing about promoting the possibility of getting cancer.

Only after the cancer is advanced enough that the cancerous cells have formed a tumor, according to this study the antioxidants promote the growth of the blood vessels of the tumor, which is very undesirable, because the better vascularized a tumor is, the faster it grows.

When there is no cancer, promoting the growth of the blood vessels is a desirable effect.

In the article they clearly state that this applies for those with elevated risk. Those without cancer.

Seems to make sense. If a tumor starts growing you won't know it. Meanwhile the antioxidants are helping it.

Like many decisions in nutrition, any choice has both advantages and disadvantages.

Judging from the results of this paper, avoiding antioxidants may decrease your risk of death because some undetected cancer has grown faster before being discovered, but it may increase your risk of death due to some cardiovascular disease.

You might have cancer at a subclinical level years before you get symptoms. Some cancers (e.g. some prostate cancers) grow very slowly and might not kill you before something else does, in a case like accelerating cancer growth could make all the difference between something subclinical and something really dangerous.

Are antioxidants just helping all growth across the board, including tumors? Or do they help tumors more than other tissue?

I guess there’s a chance it might be an unfortunate or misleading message here if supplements reduce the risk of getting cancer more than they increase the severity once someone has it?

>Is this to say that once you have cancer, these are bad, or that they promote the possibility of getting cancer.

Aren't we all and always in some state of "having cancer"? It's just a crappy modification away.

I would agree. I would phrase it differently, as "cancer" is a human defined term. Our bodies are constantly fighting abnormal cell growth.

I figured as much as well. We probably have few cancer cells popping up and eaten out every days or hours, and it only gets bad once whacks gets outpaced by moles or something.

Cancers can grow so slow though that they're not becoming an issue, before the person dies of something else. Also it takes a while to notice cancer and around 50% of the population at some point get cancer that is noticed and warrants treatment.

If you are doing chemotherapy, your oncologist may tell you to avoid vitamin C and other anti-oxidants precisely because the chemotherapy drugs rely on oxidation to kill the cancer cells.

Vitamin C is hailed for contributing to immune system defense. So maybe having the right amount is best?

That or pre-cancer diagnosis you rely heavily on vitamin C, and post-cancer diagnosis you withdraw heavily from vitamin C?

Vitamin C is antiangiogenic, it does the opposite to promoting blood vessels, slightly confused at the contradiction.

Supplements like Tumeric have the same effect.

Here is the actual paper: https://www.jci.org/articles/view/169671

As usual, the title is not accurate, as there is no "fuel".

What happens is that the antioxidants, including vitamin C, stimulate the tumors to grow blood vessels.

The tumors with better blood vessels grow faster.

So the antioxidants that are good for you are also good for tumors. Therefore they must be avoided whenever cancer is identified and you have to take medication that is bad for you, but hopefully even worse for tumors.

Some anti-tumor medication has precisely the purpose to prevent the growth of blood vessels. This may stop the growth of the tumor, but it is also obviously bad for your other blood vessels, so it can be used only to gain time until some other form of treatment becomes feasible.

> Therefore they must be avoided and you have to take medication that is bad for you, but hopefully even worse for tumors.

Is that basically what chemotherapy is?

Yes.

Moreover, the paper specifically mentions administering Vitamin C, Vitamin E and N-acetyl-cysteine. The article casually throws in Vitamin A, Selenium and Zinc into the mix, none of which are mentioned in the paper.

> So the antioxidants that are good for you are also good for tumors.

I think the consensus is that supplements aren't useful as long as you don't have a deficiency (which is pretty uncommon in the west if you aren't eating particularly bad).

Sometimes they may be useful to treat a condition. I had common warts for years, they would never disappear on their own without freezing and there was one that was resistant to multiple freezing sessions at the doc. I have started taking stupid doses of D3, C and also eating garlic every day - the freeze resistant wart flattened to almost nothing in 2 weeks on its own, any small wart that pops up now will disappear in a month without freezing.

Would it not be more accurate to say, “they must be avoided in vitamin supplement form”?

In general, supplements should not be taken without good reason, because their availability in concentrated form makes it very easy to consume too much, like is also the case for refined sugar.

Consuming too much of anything that is useful in small quantities, is either useless or harmful.

When restricted to the same small quantities that are normally available from natural sources, there are no significant differences between vitamins from supplements and from their natural sources.

There may be good reasons to use supplements, as long as their dosage is right. For instance, eating one raw red bell pepper per day will provide enough vitamin C for a human. However, the same amount of ascorbic acid powder costs ten times less where I live, in Europe. So either taste or budget may make the supplement preferable, which is fine, unless a much greater daily intake is used than it would have been provided by the bell pepper.

I was just trying to say that healthy diets are still healthy, and that this study does not implicate healthy foods in the same way that it implicates supplements, which I agree, are generally either unnecessary or unhealthy, with a few special cases.

I was also just making this point of clarification for other people, and not implying that a reasonable reading of your post would determine you thought otherwise.

This - the overconsumption of supplements can lead to problems. The problem isn't so much with a daily multivitamin as it is with megadoses of a bunch of different vitamins. I know it's only anecdotal, but I had a cousin that really got into one of those vitamin selling pyramid schemes. She got to the point she was taking dozens of different supplements every day and was one of the top sellers. She got cancer and died while only in her 30's. This has been decades ago and I don't remember which cancer she had, but I do remember friends and family wondering if taking all those supplements was a factor? Subsequent research suggests perhaps so. Like I said, she was mega dosing - she wasn't just taking a daily multivitamin.

I have been, not sure if it counts as megadosing, but let's it does, megadosing D3 and C. I have struggled with common skin HPV that would not go away for over 3 years. Modest supplement doses did nothing, but when I increased D3 to 6,000 IU, C to 1.5g and started eating garlic, the warts just started disappearing on their own after some 2 weeks - including the most difficult ones (previously that would require freezing and even that could not eliminate some warts after multiple sessions at the doc). As far as I'm aware all of those are antioxidants. I guess that the invalid cell cleanup and virus cleanup are different mechanisms, but maybe just a guess - that if the immune system is too weak to clean up HPV on its own, it may also be more prone to let a cancer cell slip, maybe I would be better off to continue megadosing those... This kinda makes it a tough call. The thing about sugar is kinda related between the 2 - there's this study about how eating large amounts of sugar in one take will mess with the tumor cleanup mechanism - I noticed that I would often get more new warts after holidays when I consumed a lot of sugar.

lol I bet that works, you can also rub garlic directly on warts and other skin issues I’ve been helped by that in the last. On a separate note, 6,000 IU of d3 is nowhere near a megadose lmao, the study that supposed that it’s dangerous was wrong due to a typo, doses of 50,000 IU over 6mo have been tested and found to be safe. I personally take around 10-15k daily depending on sun exposure and once a week take 30k IUs, along with other things. I would recommend experimenting with 10k daily dose at least if you’re willing to check it out :)

> As usual, the title is not accurate, as there is no "fuel". What happens is that the antioxidants, including vitamin C, stimulate the tumors to grow blood vessels.

What an odd nitpick, especially as it's incorrect.

> fuel, verb, 2: support, stimulate [1]

By improving the blood flow, it supports, stimulates, or fuels the growth of tumors.

1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fuel

> but it is also obviously bad for your other blood vessels, so it can be used only to gain time until some other form of treatment becomes feasible.

As a nutrient/oxygen delivery network, in an adult human it should not be a problem unless one's injured I imagine? That's because the vessel network is fully developed, but I don't know if my intuition is correct on this one.

Other clickbait titles could be "Eating fruit and vegetables accelerates cancer". Which is frankly not true. It requires the BACH1 protein to be present in tumor cells.

The claim more simplified would be something like excess antioxidants help protect cells and thus grow. Also reasoning as to why you don't take high-dose antioxidants when going through treatment. Because it can interfere through protective mechanisms.

The irony of this research is this somewhat brings up the age-old debate on Pauling's cancer work yet again.

It's astonishing how BAD basically all media reporting around science is. Anytime I see a headline about science I assume it's bullshit and investigation within to the actual science behind it, it basically always is.

If only everyone could be as good a writer as Derek Lowe or Ed Yong.

Exactly!

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/curcumin-will-wast...

>> More than that, a quick search will reveal that there are plenty of people ready to sell you curcumin tablets in every variety, for a list of ailments longer than most people's legs. Everything from Alzheimer's to upset stomach - curcumin is good for what ails you, apparently.

>> So what do you get when you look closely at the molecule and its activities? Well, for one thing, curcumin's stability and pharmacokinetics are absolutely terrible.

There is so much debate to this, I consider this article clickbait.

Consider this clinical trial that suggests the exact opposite:

>> High Doses of Vitamin C with Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/clinical-trial...

Other studies:

>> Targeting cancer vulnerabilities with high-dose vitamin C

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6526932/

Other studies of uses of supplements:

>> Taken together, these results suggest that combinational chemotherapy with ascorbic acid and paclitaxel not only does not block the anticancer effects of paclitaxel but also alleviates the cytotoxicity of paclitaxel in vivo and in vitro.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23176798

Overall, talk to your oncologist before combining any supplements with your chemotherapy.

All situational. But I'm sure Pauling is laughing in his grave.

See https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-cent... and specifically Mark Levine's pioneering work https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15068981/ which adds to this debate.

> this discovery surprised researchers

No it didn't, not to anyone paying attention

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/n-acetyl-cysteine-...

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/exercise-and-vitam...

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/antioxidants-and-c...

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/evidence-piles-ant...

Exactly, it’s been well known for a while.

There was a paper comparing physical fitness between two groups - one got high dose vitamin C, one didn’t.

The ones take high dose vitamin C saw a far worse improvement in physical fitness.

Why? Metabolism generates free radicals. The body used that as a signal to drive the changes that result in improved physical fitness.

It’s one of those things where a given molecule has both positive and negative implications for the body.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/05/11/0903485106.shor...

It is worth noting the sample size, the focus on insulin sensitivity on healthy males, and lack of consideration of other beneficial antioxidant health outcomes.

It's a major problem in anti-aging that many forms of "senescence" disable cancer cells. You might think you want more active stem cells to heal nicks and cuts and stuff like that but you don't want them running amok.

Does this mean that people undergoing chemo shouldn't have any supplements at all?

Lutein, for example, is a strong antioxidant but also has anti-cancer properties.

Edit: thanks for the replies!

When my mother in law (RIP) was going through treatment for lymphoma, the doctors did in fact advise against taking supplements. Because -- either doing nothing (waste of $$), doing "something" that could likely discourage cell death and therefore maybe cancer, or doing... who knows what? because under-regulated and studied.

Chemo is rough, for sure.

I was advised not to take supplements or antioxidants during chemo.

"The healthier you are, then so too is your cancer." was something that threw me off a bit.

Edit: just to be clear, at the point in which you already have cancer, the most important treatment is the science of chemotherapy. Antioxidants can in turn “strengthen” tumor cells (just as they do regular cells) and cause chemo resistance/refractory.

Sounds like a mythical riddle. "To survive, you must go knock on the doors of death."

Chemotherapy is deadly. The idea is to administer enough to kill the cancer but not kill the patient. It's literally a well-regulated and well-monitored poison.

Don't get the wrong idea - chemotherapies are among the best therapies we have for treating cancer. I'm not anti-Western medicine or anti-chemotherapy or anything like that, it's just we have to recognize the nature of the beast and what it is exactly that we're doing when administering it.

>> "The healthier you are, then so too is your cancer." was something that threw me off a bit.

There is debate to this. I've spoken with oncologists that say that you need your organs to survive the chemo process, so you should be taking care of yourself and eating a normal diet.

Another reason oncologists don't want supplements involved is that it can interfere with the chemo absorption. Sometimes it can enhance the chemo. It really depends on the chemo and the supplements.

It might just mean "wait for replication"

Should not take high doses of antioxidants to be more specific.

I don't think this is the case for antioxidants across the board. Peter Langjoen, who has pioneered CoQ10 research and used it extensively clinically addressed coQ10 use with chemotherapy in this interview and reluctancy of cancer centers to allow patients to use it: https://youtu.be/9Z7X9WPWv4Y?si=avOV0u4ruy_zNslr&t=746.

While coenzyme Q10 may show indirect anticancer activity through its effect(s) on the immune system, there is evidence to suggest that analogs of this compound can suppress cancer growth directly[1].

1. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/hp/coenzym...

In literally 3 hours, I'm about to start my first iv chemo session (18 weeks total).

And yes I was instructed to not take any supplements, especially naturopathic stuff but even including common multivitamins.

Not sure why you were getting downvoted - I'm of the age where I've had several friends and acquaintances deal with cancer and have had to have chemotherapy. In most cases they were instructed to not take any supplements. They especially don't want you taking naturopathic stuff because that's so poorly regulated and they really have no idea what it is you were actually taking and how it might affect your therapy. My understanding is this is pretty much standard operating procedure.

Note by definition antioxidants are chemically reactive substances that want to react with ROS but may also want to react with other things.

Your body uses oxidation to do important tasks. For instance one way immune system cells destroy invaders and cancer cells is by oxidizing then to death.

To second order your body has antioxidant systems that try to maintain the right level of activity. N-Acetyl Cysteine affects the metabolism of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutathione

for instance and what your body does with it in the liver. Your body should try to maintain the right level of antioxidant activity as much as it can if you are consuming more or less vitamins.

This is not new at all.

Nick Lane writes very specifically about this in “power, sex, suicide”.

Specifically, ingested antioxidants have no pathway to enter the cell where we believe antioxidants would be helpful… And even if they could they would almost certainly hurt us by interfering with essential cell signaling mechanisms.

Bad cells need to die. You should not get in the way of this process. In fact, you should probably encourage it.

The experimental basis for this dates to the early 80s.

Yes, that means the entire antioxidant edifice has been bullshit the entire time.

I am amazed how stupid we people are. We really want to put things into only two categories - something is either good or bad. This applies to cholesterol and many other things. ROS are bad in some cases, and are a mechanism for protection in a lot more. It's good to have antioxidants before facing a pathogen, but not good when you're already sick. There are many studies showing that taking antioxidants before exercise negates its health benefits and many others. Also, really, I'm not sure what taking stuff orally really do. For example, I lot of people take collagen nowadays, but once in the stomach, it just get broken down into amino acids, so, it's not different than any complete protein. Unless you get antioxidants via IV or use some liposomal form, I doubt there's much effect of just concentrated nutrient that's not in its natural form, which naturally absorbable and not destructed in your stomach.

The original study reports only in vitro data. Call me skeptical about the sweeping conclusion in the title.

https://www.jci.org/articles/view/169671

Dr. Brad Stanfield - one of the few medical professionals who've challenged Dr. David Sinclair about his promotion of NMN and Resveratrol - has a couple of well researched posts about N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) that are worth watching if you're into this stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvX6ivegQRE&t=1s

Which is completely unsurprising since ROS (Reactive Oxygen Species) are used by organisms to kill cancer cells, bacteria and other foreign stuff in the body.

P.S. I am neither a doctor nor a biologist.

If you want a laugh, check out the comment section on that page. The Chinese, Biden, Clinton, and Big Pharma are all in cahoots.

https://studyfinds.org/dietary-supplements-help-tumors/?show...

I think that these results fit very well with the theory that cancer cells obtain energy from the fermentation pathway (as opposed to the oxidative pathway)

How so?

It just says "We’ve found that antioxidants activate a mechanism that causes cancer tumors to form new blood vessels" which doesn't suggest anything about different metabolic pathways

Oh, it just speculation of course but they mention that many of these supplements have antioxidants, which is the opposite effect of what you would like to have. Given that the fermentation theory is correct.

In other words, you don't want to inhibit oxidation, you want to promote oxidation and inhibit fermentation.

Recommended reading on this includes "Do You Believe in Magic" by Dr. Paul Offit, the Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (certainly one of the best children's hospitals in the world).

Interesting, picked up a used copy. Thanks for the recommendation!

I wonder what that means for vegan people taking "large spectrum" vitamin supplements, e.g. veg one ?

What about small molecule antioxidants like melatonin?

Does it include D-3 and K-2?

Surprise surprise surprise!

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