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"Antioxidant pills can increase health risk, researchers find"

Source: South China Morning Post

Published: 18 Jun 2008

Category: Treatments, Tests, Devices or Drugs (TTDD)

Rating: (3½ stars)

what they said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

People have been urged not to take antioxidant supplements like beta-carotene, vitamins A, C and E and selenium to fight disease after a review of 181 studies found some may actually increase the risk of death.

The call was made by a pharmacist and a doctor yesterday, after the summary of the findings of 181 clinical trials involving 646,038 people was published in the medical journal Cochrane Review in April.

The original article can be found at: http://www.scmp.com

The original article can found in the Media Doctor archives.

how did it rate? (more information)

Criteria	Rating
Total Score	7 of 10
Novelty of Treatment, Test, Device or Drug	Satisfactory (?)
Sources of Information	Satisfactory (?)
Background Facts	Satisfactory (?)
Headline	Satisfactory (?)
Applicability	Satisfactory (?)
Quality of Evidence	Not Satisfactory (?)
Quantifying Treatment Benefits	Not Satisfactory (?)
Treatment Harms	Satisfactory (?)
Treatment Costs and Options	Not Satisfactory (?)
Disease Mongering	Satisfactory (?)

what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

this is a good story about important research. It would have been strengthened by a brief description about the Cochrane Collaboration and that this information is based on the highest level of evidence. More information about how mortality is increased would have been beneficial too as this is the aspect most people will be interested in.

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