New research conducted by URMC’s cancer researcher Dr. Isaac Harris, who oversees a lab that studies the role of antioxidants in cancer development, showed some of the drawbacks antioxidants can have for your health. They found that antioxidants, which are typically found naturally in fruits and vegetables, contain a common nutrient that was previously known to prevent cell damage. However, it has now been shown to increase one’s risk of developing cancer, especially when taken as a supplement.
Harris, who serves as principal investigator (PI) of this project, studies the roles of antioxidants, molecules that protect cells and DNA from damage caused by free radicals (Molecules that destroy cells by stealing electrons from them and destabilizing them). Healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables have high levels of antioxidants, which play a key role in preventing chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer. However, when people consume these antioxidants as a supplement rather than in the foods where they are naturally found, especially without advice from a health professional, these supplements have been shown to do more harm than good.
According to Harris, “[Damaged DNA] leads to mutations that could cause cancer to grow. And so there was, for quite some time, the idea that antioxidants, by limiting DNA damage and limiting these mutations, [could] be cancer preventative,” he said. However, “something that is good for a normal cell, can also be good for a cancer cell. What people have found and what we found is that cancer cells really rely on these antioxidants to survive.”
Harris also noted that the supplements that people may buy over-the-counter from grocery stores or pharmacies are usually bought without advice from a health professional. The dosages of the antioxidants in the supplements are unknown compared to the dose in fruits and vegetables and may potentially increase the risk of cancer development when consumed. “There’s an entire industry around antioxidant supplements and the idea that consumption of these supplements could be preserving normal cells from becoming cancer cells,” Harris said. “”However, when they’ve done clinical trials, these have actually turned out quite negative. While they could be helping normal cells, they can also help cancer cells exist and grow and survive.”
The Harris Lab recently conducted research into the role of one antioxidant called glutathione. The lab collaborated with URMC Professor of Microbiology and Immunology Joshua Munger to explain the role of glutathione by performing liquid chromatography, which is analyzing trace amounts of the chemical when its compounds are separated into their components, and mass spectroscopy, which is where scientists analyzed how particles of glutathione interact with light.
They eventually found that glutathione, similar to most antioxidants, is utilized by cancerous cells as a fuel source to boost their development and spread throughout the body. “[Glutathione] isn’t really used as an antioxidant, but instead it gets broken down into individual amino acids. And this becomes more food for the cancer cell,” Harris illustrated.
Ph.D candidate Fatemeh Alimohammadi, a primary collaborator of the Harris Lab, expressed her interest in taking part in this research project because the findings contradicted greatly from what most people are told about antioxidants.
“This topic was generally interesting to me because … it was very different from what I[’ve] heard since childhood,” she said. “Since our childhoods, we heard that antioxidants are good for different diseases [and] on the market, there is not a proper regulation on that and people can’t buy it without prescription.”
The study was recently published on URMC’s news page as well as in the scientific journal Nature. The Harris Lab will continue researching to understand the roles of antioxidants and other nutrients in cancer development as this provides valuable insight into nutrition and public health. Future projects include conducting additional trials to further investigate how glutathione and other types of amino acids possibly contribute to and/or prevent the development of cancer and other chronic diseases.
