Nobel Prize-winning scientist Mr. James Watson has warned late-stage cancer patients to not take any multi-vitamin pills containing antioxidants as he believes that people are doing nothing but thwarting their own treatment by such act.

Still it hasn't been cleared whether the antioxidants like vitamins A, C and E that are present in supplements are of any benefits to such patients or no and thus a fierce debate is still on between the experts with some studies suggesting their moderate effort in protection against cancer but Professor Watson (the discoverer of the ``double helix'' structure of DNA in 1953 with Prof Francis Crick) arguing the pills to be doing more harm than good.

In context to same, he also gave an explanation recently in a paper in which he said that the consumption of such pills increases the level of antioxidants in the body, which further acts like a hurdle for the treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy and stops them from working. This unfortunately serves as a big reason that late-stage cancers often become untreatable.

As far as healthy people are concerned, antioxidants can prove helpful because they help fighting the free radicals molecules, which can damage DNA of the body.

Professor Watson has described his theory as ``among my most important work since the double helix'' and urged the experts in the field to carry out studies and test his theory to make the facts clearer.