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Chemicals

Aprofessor of chemistry and biochemistry from California State University, Northridge came to Pierce College on Friday, April 25 to speak on the dangers of antioxidants and natural supplements.

Gagik Melikyan has been fighting for the protection of the American public against companies that try to pass off dangerous compounds as medicine. He has a Ph. D of science, has written an award-winning book, and educated an entire generation of chemists and biologists.

“Natural supplements are sold to the public with various claims,” Melikyan said. “There has to be an established need. The impact needs to be measurable.” the body, according to Melikyan. it all. Supplements, if taken unnecessarily, can also cause problems. An overabundance of any specific chemical in the body, even so-called good ones, can be harmful and throw the chemistry out of balance.

Even things like green tea and red wine that are often considered healthy can be varying degrees of unhealthy to ingest too much of.

Red wine contains resveratrol, a compound touted to extend life. There is, however, no proven evidence showing that it can do this.

Resveratrol is dangerous on a few levels. Melikyan points out that it is an estrogenic compound and a potential carcinogen because it’s status as a phenolic compound.

An overabundance of estrogen can cause breast and cervical cancer in women. Too much estrogen can affect men negatively as well, causing testicular cancer and other medical issues. This is on top of the already carcinogenic potential of resveratrol.

Companies have taken an interest in pushing supplements because they are easy to create and sell, according to Melikyan.

“Why are companies interested in supplements? It’s difficult to develop drugs,” Melikyan said.

Drugs need to go through a battery of tests and approvals over a period of 10-15 years, which amounts to millions or billions of dollars spent into one drug.

These all lead to supplements being pushed onto the public that could possible be dangerous, especially if people are uninformed.

Corinne Browne, a Pierce student who attended the meeting, said she has been taking supplements for a long time and wanted to see what he had to say.

“I find it interesting and I definitely feel like not taking resveratrol or green tea, because he’s obviously done research on that,” Browne said. “If something is bad for me, I want to know.”

April 13 - 19 – Compiled by: Marissa Nall 4-29 Student incident-Deputies were called to resolve an altercation between two students in the Student Services building.