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]