A Type Of Antioxidant May Not Be As Safe As Once Thought

Another example of the one step forward, two steps backwards dance.

"Certain preparations taken to enhance athletic performance or stave off disease contain an antioxidant that could cause harm."

How bad is the "harm"?

"According to new research at the University of Virginia Health System, N-acetylcysteine (NAC), an antioxidant commonly used in nutritional and body building supplements, can form a red blood cell derived molecule that makes blood vessels think they are not getting enough oxygen. This leads to pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a serious condition characterized by high blood pressure in the arteries that carry blood to the lungs."

PAH kills.

But that is not the point.

The points are:

"truth" in the fitness domain has a very short shelf life,
the "truth" is frequently unreliable,
the "truth" frequently changes,
one day's beneficial "truth" is the next day's harmful "truth" and
that we simply do not know enough about what we are doing when we stupidly use heroic efforts, i.e., surgery and drugs, for overweight and obesity.

Hormonal control, gene therapy, etc., guarantee even more harms.

"'The more we understand about complexities in humans, the more we need to be aware of chemical reactions in the body,' said Palmer."

Palmer is right.

And until "we understand (more) about complexities in humans," we should stop screwing them up with useless, harmful, costly and complications-generating interventions for problems whose natural, absolute solutions already exist.