I have been reading quite a bit about these antioxidant lately. I have
read many of the papers but some are paywalled and I only had access
to the abstracts.

Something to keep in mind about these antioxidant studies: almost
invariably, they involved VERY high doses, not the kind of
concentration you (or a ferret) might take as a daily dose.

The recent study involving vitamin E and p53 did involve doses as low
as 10 time a dietary dose, but it is important to keep in mind that
effects only appeared when it was used in conjunction with beta
carotene, which has been implicated in other cancer studies. There
was no indication that vitamin E by itself had any harmful effects.

So at this point, from the studies done, the only vitamin that has
actually been statistically correlated with tumor growth, and that
at doses no lower than 10x a "normal" daily intake, has been beta
carotene. Most all of the other studies have used very large amounts
that would not normally be encountered in humans unless they were
"megadosing" vitamins.

In summary: very high doses of vitamins are probably not a good idea,
especially beta carotene if you (or your ferret) has cancer. But at
this time there is no genuine evidence calling for alarm (or alarmism)
over something like a daily multivitamin. I suggest taking any cries
of gloom and doom with a large grain of salt.

Lonny Eachus

[Posted in FML 8031]