This is opinionated but I hope helpful, and truly
not meant to offend anyone. I just am super-cautious about health fads. (Plus, I took my ADD Rx today which makes me obsess and go on and ON about things I get interested in. Sigh.)
I spent most of my career in consumer health publishing and was trained to take special care with internet or TV doctors who evidence a lot of excess hostility (not that some isn't
well deserved) toward modern medicine. Particularly when many of those same sources are selling unregulated dietary supplements and raking in mega-millions. Your local dedicated, well-educated MD may be well off, but not like that....
There is a LOT wrong with allopathic or "Western" medicine, including corruption from unacknowledged special-interest influences including big pharma, inadequate nutrition and prevention education (though that's changing) and without question, over-prescribing. On the other hand, it's made extraordinary progress, and is for the most part evidence based. I have a lot of respect for science overall (partly because I worked in a research university medical setting for years), and when push comes to shove--I trust the dedicated and underpaid scientists within mainstream medicine over supplement zillionaires. That said, I also like research and take several specific supplements. I always look up new supplement fads.
A good site is this one:
http://www.berkeleywellness.com/supplements/other-supplements/article/astaxanthin-hype. It's calm but factual.
I've got nothing against chiropractic, and it was very helpful for my back pain. But personally I believe that the overblown claims and overreach of
some who promote chiropractic or osteopathic or naturopathic medicine as the cure for everything--
particularly while selling supplement products at the same time--are unethical. Homeopathy is hooey except for flu remedies which do have some evidence of efficacy. People who can barely afford to get by have spent billions on heavily-promoted supplements and "cures." I understand the mind-body connection and that belief-based cures can work. Placebo works very well too in many cases. Homeopathy is popular in the U.K. because the royal family uses it.
"Believing" in a doctor or clever marketing is no substitute for believing in science overall, imo. I am particularly skeptical of Mercola for trashing mammography, which has saved the lives of many women I know. I sniff enormous hubris. I even sniff narcissism.
All that said, this (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25995739) indicates virtually no evidence for significant health claims. SLIGHT lowering of glucose levels, and zero effect on lipids. What's valuable about this type of study (a meta-analysis) is that it combines and validates from multiple well-controlled studies. So, in essence, it's a summary of the reputable evidence.
Between Dr. Oz, Mercola, and others who've gotten extremely wealthy pitching the view that they have "secret, insider or NEW discovery" knowledge that goes beyond un-exaggerated evidence (what's available) from the scientific community....people are credulous. The frustrating thing is that the scientific community COULD provide more reliable evidence
con or pro for supplements, but lack of funding or governmental authority makes it completely impossible for them to keep up with the marketers. So consumers are stuck in the dark and become prey to hucksters with incredible promotional engines. It's a mess.
Antioxidants are very good things, when you get them from eating a variety of whole foods. This one is mostly a colorant added to animal feed. But taking it in pill form is unlikely to do anything special for health that a healthful diet can't do, and there may be risks--it also reduces calcium levels and alters the body's hormone levels.
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-are-the-most-common-astaxanthin-side-effects.htm If you want some extra, imo, it'd be wiser to eat more salmon.
(Speaking of carotenoids, people gobbled high-dose beta-carotene supplements for years, which were pushed on the public in the very same way...until science found that these supplements increased lung cancer risk. Whoops.)
Europe is way ahead of the U.S. in caring about supplement/nutrient safety. One key observation they made in reviewing this one
as a food additive (e.g., in animal feed) is that the recommended dose of the same antioxidant by supplement sellers of 4 mg/day is a
three- to four-time higher intake than what's known to be safe from consuming foods that have it added.
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3757 There are NO long-term safety studies of high-dose astaxanthin supplements. Given the history of unregulated supplements (such as beta-carotene, contaminated l-tryptophan, many dangerous herbs, Chinese ingredients, etc.), long-term safety studies are important.
If you're going to risk it--here's what's known to be safe so far:
0.034 mg/kg bw per day. "Kg bw" means "per kilogram of body weight." Of course, since it comes in oil form in gel caps, how are you going to get a safe dosage...? And since many of these algae-based oils go rancid from oxidizing either in the capsule or due to careless processing (a rampant problem), you wind up consuming the OPPOSITE of an antioxidant--oxidized oils.
[Hope this helps too...it's more intelligent, comprehensive (and balanced) than what I wrote above:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2012/Dr-Joseph-Mercola-Visionary-or-Quack/].
Love--
Hops
