10. Antioxidant drugs do not work
Many drugs have antioxidant activity even if they haven’t been specifically designed to, although the significance depends on the compound used and pathology involved.
While it can be difficult to establish direct and acute effects of scavenging antioxidant compounds in vivo, the effect of antioxidants is particularly clear in situations in which radical formation and subsequent damage are also evident, the review said.
“The paradox ‘antioxidants do not work’ because they cannot display antioxidant activity and that they at the same time cause toxicity and even premature mortality via antioxidant activity, is contradictory.”