[extropy-chat] Let's protect these brains! With Antioxidants!

[Martin Striz]

On 7/18/06, A B <austriaaugust at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> One of the most probable threats is from
> age-related cognitive decline. As many of you probably know, one of the
> primary suspects for age-related cognitive decline is cumulative
> free-radical damage. Fortunately, humans can significantly reduce (but not
> totally eliminate) further free-radical damage by consuming appropriate
> antioxidants (eg. Vitamin E, C, and others).

That statement has not be verified empirically, unless you have some
studies you'd like to share.  Several meta-analyses have found the
reverse.  You use as much antioxidants as you need and metabolize or
pass out the rest.

The makers of Protandim claim 40% reductions in lipid peroxidation
levels, though.  It works by increasing levels of antioxidant enzymes.

> Vitamin C
> is also totally safe unless you are trying to overdose with it and exceed
> around 10,000 milligrams daily - you won't overdose successfully but you
> will get some pretty bad diarrhea.  :-)

You don't know what you're talking about.  Serum ascorbic acid levels
peak at doses of 400 mg, the rest gets broken down into oxalate and
can potentially combine with Ca++ in the kidneys to form kidney stones
(although risk for this phenomenon seems to be genetic).  It is
useless and potentially unhealthy to consume more than 400 mg in a
single dose, and given that you would only dose three times a day,
~1200 mg/d.

> At the very least, we should all consider taking 2 X 500mg Vitamin C, daily.
> It's a powerfully effective brain antioxidant, it's totally harmless,

Spreading this kind of misinformation is irresponsible.

I did a short review of antioxidants a while back:

http://striz.org/blog/?p=227

Martin