Endurance athletes are always on the look out for supplements that will enhance recovery, increase speed, or otherwise improve performance. Over the years we have seen ergogenic aids come and go. At one point or another HMB, ginseng, MCT’s, pyruvate, BCAA’s, CoQ10, and others,  have all been touted as performance enhancers* but one by one people realize that few athletes seem to achieve  long term benefits by  taking these supplements.  As a general comment, we are old school and do not recommend our athletes spend their money on supplements. Rather we would like to see them focus on good nutrition and hard training.

Athletes, nonetheless, will sometimes ignore our advice and take supplements under the notion of “cant hurt – might help so what have I got to lose.” The problem ocurrs when new research comes out informing us that the “cant hurt” piece of this equation was not 100% accurate.

New research reported in the New York Times informs us that supplementation with seemingly benign substances such as vitamins may be harmful.  The Times reviewed several different studies in which antioxidants such as Vitamin E, beta carotene, Vitamin C, Selenium, Vitamin A all increased cancer rates and mortality.

The link between vitamin supplementation and mortality, according to researchers, is antioxidants.  The common thought is that cellular damage is caused by oxidation and the formation of free radicals. The body makes antioxidants to neutralize free radicals. The problem with this thinking may be:

“The likely explanation is that free radicals aren’t as evil as advertised. (In fact, people need them to kill bacteria and eliminate new cancer cells.) And when people take large doses of antioxidants in the form of supplemental vitamins, the balance between free radical production and destruction might tip too much in one direction, causing an unnatural state where the immune system is less able to kill harmful invaders. Researchers call this the antioxidant paradox.”

This should be interesting for athletes because for years, the thinking was that endurance athletes, because of their training, have high levels of free radicals and antioxidant supplementation could be beneficial to their health by helping limit the damage to their body because of the training. Moreover, the thinking was that antioxidant supplementation, even if it did not enhance recovery was not harmful.

As far as we are are aware it is not known if endurance athletes form a different cohort of individuals than the individuals included in the studies reported in The New York times. Moreover, if is unknown if the risk of antioxidant supplementation outweighs the potential risks in endurance athletes. We are looking at the research and pending additional developments may change our vitamin supplementation program. In the mean time, athletes are cautioned about the potential adverse effects of antioxidant supplementation as reported by The New York Times; and are encouraged to contact their physician for additional information.

*BTW: if there was something that worked, I mean really worked, everyone would be on it and soon enough it would be banned.

REFERENCE: “Don’t take your vitamins.” NY TImes. June 8, 2013.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/dont-take-your-vitamins.html