Free Radical Enzymatic Device (FRED): We Definitely Are Not Ready

The "antioxidant supplement channel" isn't a science phrase, it's a marketer phrase! They mean the industry that sells antioxidant dietary supplements to consumers. That would include vitamins, certain herbs, and certain other nutrients. Beyond that, the product is baffling but I suspect the consumer would buy the gadget and then a company would tell them to buy a lot of dietary supplements.
PS I am a premed. Do I win a cookie?

I assume this is a hydrogen peroxide reaction in exhaled breath condensate. The detection limit for this type of a thing is in the 10nM range (Respir Med. 2002 Mar;96(3):197-203.). Sounds pretty useless if all it's going to do is convince people to get outside and play, don't eat all those cookies, and drink your orange juice (as if you needed a little device to tell you what your grandmother told you was good for you).

Sounds like it's time for another round of Pseudoscience Friday!

Actually, some objective information about ongoing oxidation processes in the body may put some science behind the use of anti-oxidants. Plus it may help figure out which patients with asthma or COPD or diabetes have an inability to deal with teh oxidant loads, so that such patients can be selected for trials of anti-oxidants. Right now, doctors rely on an "evidence-base" that is itself based on poor thinking. For example, if anti-oxidants don't work in "asthma", perhaps that is because only SOME asthmatics have a problem dealing with oxidants. Find those individual patients (with a device like FRED) and try a study of antioxidants in them. That would be an intelligent study, although probably expensive.

I am all in favor of efforts to quantitate oxidation in the body. Excessive oxidation is tissue injury, which requires repair, which increases scarring. Aging...... Seems like a smart idea to me. But then, I am just a stupid academic physician/scientist. What do I know?