Antioxidant users don't live longer, analysis of studies...(pplements as treatment for acute disease...)

The review authors recommend greater regulation of antioxidant supplements and make a plea for urgent political action, said Gluud, director of medical science, associate professor and department head of the Copenhagen Trial Unit at the Centre for Clinical Intervention Research and Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark.

We should request that the regulatory authorities dare to regulate the industry without being financially dependent on the very same industry, Gluud said.

However, nutrition science expert Jeffrey Blumberg, Ph.D., said the reviewers go too far in their recommendations for more stringent regulation of antioxidant supplements.

I could find nowhere in this report any review of regulatory practices and effectiveness or the evaluation of public health policies, procedures or perspectives, Blumberg said.

Blumberg is director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and a professor with the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. He was not involved in the review.

A supplement-industry trade group questions both the review conclusions and the study selection process for the analysis.

Four hundred five studies which showed no deaths were excluded from the meta-analysis, which if included, clearly would have altered the outcome of the meta-analysis, said Andrew Shao, Ph.D., vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a supplement industry trade association in Washington, D.C.

Shao maintained that antioxidant supplements are safe additions to a healthy diet.

The review only includes studies in which someone died.

Gluud defended his methodology, saying it is important to include only l
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