>From:    [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Bit of trivia for you ....
>Here's a bit of trivia for you: did you know that tobacco contains no fewer
>than 16 different antioxidants?  Yet it's still a powerful carcinogen when
>inhaled in cigarettes.
 
>Moral of the story: the simple fact that something is an antioxidant does
>NOT mean it's benign, and does not mean that it doesn't have potential to
>cause cancer in ferrets (and other animals, and humans, etc.)
 
Since you want to be 'nit picky' and possibly missed the point of my post.
I was stating that calling antioxidants either a major source of cancer or
a major preventer of cancer is apt to be a fad.
 
When smoking tobacco isn't inhaled.  Smoke from burning tobacco is inhaled.
Some of what is in the tobacco is destroyed.  Some is transformed.  So are
the 16 antioxidants you throw out really in the tobacco or the tobacco
smoke?  Tobacco can be taken orally but is not swallowed, but Ela mentioned
smoking not snuff or 'chew-tebakky'...
 
What are the anti-oxidants?  What is your source of this?
 
I looked on the web for what I could find - from here I don't have good
access to a medical research library so these are not the best sources but
far better than those pushing quack "food supplement" un-medicines, though
they all try to sell you 'their' anti-oxidants to protect you and
apparently your pets including ferrets from cancer due to tobacco smoke.
 
For example at the University of Arizona, Yeh-Shan Peng, Ph.D. is trying
to determine whether some antioxidants can reduce the risks from smoking
tobacco.
http://www.azcc.arizona.edu/www/text_files/prev_cont/antioxidants.html
 
At the University of Nevada Reno, Chris A. Pritsos, Ph.D. is studying the
same thing.
http://www.unr.edu/hcs/nutrition/pritsos.htm
 
Veterinary Products News talks about antioxidants to help prevent cancer
in pets in some then new products.
http://www.oxyfresh.com/Information/Pet_Care/antioxidants.txt
 
BUT on the other hand...
 
Jeanne Goldberg, R.D. at Tufts writes a syndicated column for the
Washington Post Writer's group and strongly down plays antioxidants as a
good approach compared to eating and living healthy.
http://www.penpages.psu.edu/penpages_reference/29201/292011339.html
 
Ms. Goldberg made the extremely valid point that until real research on
antioxidants is completed they aren't "the answer".  That would apparently
apply to whether the preservatives that have been tested as safe and as
having some anti-cancerous properties should be avoided because someone
with no proof says otherwise.
 
Now back to Ela's claims...
 
Couldn't find any citations of the antioxidants already present in tobacco.
Only where tobacco smoke, first or second hand, depletes antioxidants.
Since few ferrets have the bad habit of smoking themselves, the fact that
second hand smoke can affect them is important.
 
But this is getting really strangely distant from whether antioxidant
preservatives in ferret food are or are not dangerous.
 
-bill
--
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
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[Posted in FML issue 2621]