Too Many Antioxidants, More Diabetes?

Tuesday, October 6, 2009 - 12:28 in Health & Medicine

It seems like common sense that too much of even good things can be bad.  Everyone has heard about the damage that reactive oxygen species (ROS) – aka free radicals – can do to our bodies by now and the sales pitches for antioxidant vitamins, skin creams or "superfoods" that can stop them - so many that we will shut off comments for this article because it will be all spam. There is ample scientific evidence that chronic ROS production within cells can contribute to human diseases, including insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes but a new report in Cell Metabolism, says that low levels of ROS – and hydrogen peroxide in particular - might actually protect us from diabetes, by improving our ability to respond to insulin signals.  read more

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