Antioxidants – vitamins said to hunt oxygen-free radicals that trigger ageing and disease – are sold over the counter everywhere and added to food, beverages and face cream. But according to Weizmann Institute of Science Prof. Nava Dekel of the biological regulation department, scientists still lack a complete understanding of how they act.
New research on rodents by Dekel and her team, recently published in the Proceedings of the [US] National Academy of Sciences, has revealed a possible unexpected side effect of antioxidants – they might cause fertility problems in females.
Common antioxidants include vitamins C and E. These work by eliminating free radical molecules produced naturally in the body. Stress can cause these chemically active molecules to be overproduced; in large amounts, they damage cells indiscriminately. By neutralizing these potentially harmful substances, antioxidants can theoretically improve health and slow the aging process.
But when Dekel and her research team – including her former and present doctoral students Dr. Ketty Shkolnik and Ari Tadmor – applied antioxidants to the ovaries of female mice, the results were surprising– ovulation levels dropped significantly. That is, very few eggs were released to reach the site of fertilization, compared to untreated ovaries.
To understand what lies behind these initial findings, the team asked whether ovulation might rely on the very “harmful” oxygen radicals destroyed by antioxidants.