The antioxidant myth

An antioxidant, yesterday. (Ascorbic acid)

We are regularly bombarded with advertising about products containing antioxidants. 'Whoa! Healthy stuff!' we are supposed to cry. Because we all know that antioxidants are good to consume. Don't we? Even aircraft manufacturers have got in on the act. Apparently Airbus' concept cabin for 2050 include 'vitamin and antioxidant enriched air.'

Now antioxidants are really good things. The antioxidants produced in your body do essential work in mopping up free radicals that can cause damage to cells. And tests where antioxidants are used directly on cells show a benefit. But here's the thing. There isn't any good evidence that consuming antioxidants gives you any benefit at all. In fact there may even be a small cancer risk as a result of the eating and drinking them. (This in itself should not be too worrying. Lots of good things have a small cancer risk attached to eating them. Celery, for instance.)

Why, then, do we keep hearing about products that are packed full of antioxidants? Early in the last century it was thought that radioactive products were good for you. You could buy radioactive toothpaste and radioactive hair tonic. The advertising was full of the benefits of these products. Strangely enough, you don't see them advertised any more. Now I'm not suggesting antioxidants are as bad as radium as something to boast about in your products, but it's still bizarre that the advertising of antioxidants continues, and is allowed to continue, when there are no proven benefits.

Image from Wikipedia

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

Search This Blog