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Antioxidants have been found to reduce life expectancy
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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It turns out that vitamins E, A, and beta-carotene in large doses increase your chances of premature death, regardless of your health status and the presence of chronic diseases.
The use of antioxidants in no way prolongs human lifespan; on the contrary, according to researchers at the University of Copenhagen, it shortens life expectancy.
According to doctors, antioxidant supplements do not improve health, so you should not rely entirely on them in your desire to live longer. This is confirmed by a statistical review by Christian Glud (Denmark), who, together with his colleagues, used data from about 78 clinical trials of antioxidants in the period 1977-2012. Scientists analyzed the health of 300 thousand people of middle age (63 years old) who took antioxidants for three years. Of these, 73% were healthy people, the rest had various chronic diseases - diabetes, heart problems, Alzheimer's disease.
During the scientific experiment, 56 works were selected that met the main condition - careful execution, allowing to rely on the reliability of the results. Based on these works, scientists have identified an increase in the mortality rate by 4% in those using antioxidants compared to patients taking a placebo. This connection was observed both in healthy patients and in patients suffering from various diseases.
A number of tests were conducted using one antioxidant, not a mixture of them. This, in turn, allowed us to identify a common pattern - the abuse of vitamin E, A, beta-carotene increased the mortality rate. On the other hand, selenium and vitamin C did not affect the life expectancy of patients. The results of the Danish scientists' research were published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association".
Antioxidants are increasingly being criticized, with carcinogenic properties of their molecules being mentioned, damaging important tissue structures in the body. The popularity of antioxidants is due to their ability to relieve oxidative stress, their action is based on suppressing aggressive oxygen radicals that destroy cell biomolecules. Why does the opposite effect occur in practice?
Peter Cohen of the Cambridge Health Alliance explains this with the following facts:
- the effect of antioxidants has been tested for a long time in vitro (in simple terms, in a test tube), as well as on animals, which casts doubt on their similar, positive effect on the human body;
- Of course, antioxidants are able to eliminate radicals, but in doing so, changes occur at the molecular-cellular level;
- The process of free radical scavenging by antioxidants negatively affects the cell itself, suppressing its own ability to resist radicals.
The harm of antioxidants requires more specific medical justification and experimental data. However, the number of works raising the issue of the adverse effects of antioxidants on the human body continues to increase every day.