How does the US supplement market get so big? In the US supplements are reviewed by the FDA, but not approved for any specific use by the organization. That means they are basically keeping an eye out for harmful products, but look the other way on everything else. Since most supplements are proprietary, you aren’t even likely to know what you are really getting.

While eating a diet rich in some antioxidants has been shown to protect against the development of coronary heart disease, strokes, some cancers, and age-related diseases, supplementing your intake has not been shown to be beneficial. Some degree of free-radical presence (the entity that anti-oxidants scavenge) can even be healthy for you. So they might even be hurting you. The Cochrane Collaboration, an international group that reviews the evidence for health care interventions, supports the view that antioxidant supplements can do more harm than good.  In 2012 it conducted a review of 78 clinical trials on antioxidant supplements, and found no evidence to support taking them for primary or secondary prevention against disease.