Taking vitamins is still a good idea ….
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-24-2007
Some of you may have read the Reader’s Digest article recently called, “The Vitamin Hoax,”
I. Unfortunately, it gave & gives mostly bad & badly researched advice.
It’s main points that most people should try to rely on food only & to NOT take extra of certain vitamins & minerals at all is totally wrong to such an extent it’s very bad editorial judgment on the part of Reader’s Digest to publish it.
If someone reading their article, stops taking multivitamins or certain key vitamins at all, the evidence I’ve seen suggests they will harm their health.
II. First, here’s what they got right:
A. It says that the best way to get vitamins & mineral is to eat foods that contain them.
That’s important & it’s partly true for three reasons:
1. Really nutritious foods, like blueberries & broccoli for example, have an enormous amount of health enhancing & protecting nutrients besides the vitamins they contain. So eating a wide variety of nutrient rich or dense foods like most of the ones in the Readers Digest list is actually a good idea.
Using our two example foods, in addition to the vitamin C they contain, both blueberries & broccoli contain fiber that helps you feel full without getting fat; & they also contain potassium that helps keep your blood pressure low enough for good health. Blueberries also contain anthocyanins & flavonols that seem to improve mental functioning in older people & to prevent stroke & which may also help prevent all cardiovascular disease. And, broccoli contains many carotenoids which are also extremely valuable nutrients AND it contains at least two known cancer fighters besides the carotenoids.
2. Many vitamins are actually the best known or most important of a family of related life & health sustaining substances. But in foods rich in the vitamins in vitamin pills, you get the whole family of related nutrients. Vitamin E from foods, for example, is NOT just the alpha tocopherol that you get in vitamins. In addition to alpha tocopherol, there are 3 other tocopherols & four tocotrienols. You get those in foods like avocados, nuts, some leafy green vegetables, & wheat germ.
3. The vitamins stated on the labels of vitamin pills are often NOT the real vitamins. Many vitamins are organic molecules which are literally ONE of two mirror image molecules, called the left handed & the dex or right handed forms by chemists. Many vitamins made from synthetic sources are only half the real thing. Even if the mirror image version causes no problems, foods & vitamin pills that only contain vitamins from natural sources, have the real thing only & are at least twice as potent.
So, regardless of whether or not you take vitamins, they are right to recommend that you should eat as many of the foods high in them as you can.
(The tuna fish they recommend is often too high in mercury. And, they recommend meat & poultry which are too high in omega 6 oils & saturated fat when grain fed and which many people already eat more of then is good for them. Wild & pasture fed poultry & meat in moderation is much safer to eat & has some omega 3 oils. They also recommend fish. Similarly, farmed fish tend to be grain fed & so high in pollutants & low in omega 3’s they are likely best not eaten. Mercifully wild caught are mostly still good for you.
The good news is that, particularly if organically grown, the nuts, legumes, fruits & vegetables they recommend are good for you.)
B. Second, they got something right; but irresponsibly left out the most important parts. And, their coverage was incomplete. So the article is a very BAD guide for people.
Some vitamins are actually bad for people in excess. They did get that right.
But except by not taking any of the vitamins in question, which the research I’ve seen shows in extremely bad for people to do, they fail to give enough information to guide people in taking those vitamins.
The animal form of vitamin A is not good for you if you take 25,000 iu a day or more. But it does have some value. And, I’ve never heard of research saying that getting 5,000 iu from a supplement & another 5,000 iu from food has caused problems. And, most vitamins now only have 5,000 iu of beta carotene, the water soluble, plant form of vitamin A.
They do say that high levels of beta carotene from pills only did have a bad track record in smokers. But they don’t emphasize enough that taking some, 5,000 iu, PLUS eating a wide variety of vegetables high in the whole family of carotenoids has been shown to have the REVERSE & positive effect.
They suggest that taking folic acid, B6, & B12 can cause problems if not in balance. Then they say NOTHING about what an OK balance is. This is irresponsible & stupid in the extreme since taking these 3 vitamins is one of the best ways to lower homocysteine levels if they are high or to prevent them from getting high. And, high homocysteine increases your rate of aging; sharply increase your chance of dying soon; & causes cardiovascular disease.
If they know so much, why leave that information out?
Even worse, they left out that taking B6 in excess of 200 mg a day often causes neurological & sensory problems.
That’s actually well known. Why leave it out? But it’s also true that taking up to 100 mg a day total, for sure & maybe up to 200 mg & getting as much as you can in foods will either lower your blood pressure if it’s high or keep it low enough for good health to begin with.
Zinc can be harmful in excess. More than 50 mg a day for an extended period has the reverse effects of getting 25 to 45 mg a day. And, they leave out that if you get extra zinc, you may need to take a bit of extra copper as zinc & copper have bad effects if they are not balanced by about ten percent of the intake of zinc as copper. So taking 30 mg of zinc suggests you should also get a total of 3 mg of cooper each day. But to suggest NOT taking any zinc when the lower amount is actually proven to have health benefits is NOT sound or desirable. The lower amount, 25 to 45 mg a day total, actually boosts HDL levels which is heart protective & has other positive health effects. Their suggestion to simply leave those potential benefits on the table & not take any since too much has the reverse effect is not very bright.
C. They also probably got right that taking 2,000 mg of vitamin D3 is a good idea based on the recent research on this & more people getting outside in the sun less.
It works with calcium to keep your bones strong & your blood pressure low enough for good health. And it seems to improve immune functioning enough to prevent you from catching serious diseases like TB; get well faster; & to prevent or kill off cancer. It may also prevent or help treat autoimmune diseases like MS.
They don’t say that the form of vitamin D in most multivitamins is a form that is only about 30 % as strong as D3. (That means the 400 iu stated only has the effect of 120 of D3 though 120 is a LOT better than none.)
Oddly, like vitamin A, taking more than 25,000 iu a day for an extended period may not be wise. And, they say nothing about this.
Since it’s relatively easy to get up to 15,000 iu a day from summer sun exposure, taking up to 2,000 to 5,000 iu a day should be quite safe however.
III. The worst part of the article though is the part where it suggests that NOT taking any extra of most of the main vitamins is either desirable or good for your health.
And, here again they state correctly that some vitamins are harmful in excess but they ignore the proven benefits of lower amounts & do NOT state how much is definitely too much & how much is actually quite safe.
Here are a few examples.:
Vitamin C They state that there is no conclusive evidence taking it prevents heart disease. Unfortunately, they or the research they relied on seems to have conveniently ignored quite substantial research that basically proves this incorrect.
I got this in an email not long ago:
The Nurses' Health Study followed more than 85,000 women for up to 16 years. This study found that a higher intake (more than 359 mg a day from food and supplements) reduced cardiovascular risk by 27 percent.
Similarly, an analysis of NINE other studies of more than 290,000 people total found a 25 percent reduction in risk in people who took more than 700 mg vitamin C, compared with those who took none.
I find it strange that they would write an advice article in a publication like the Readers Digest that goes to millions of people & not do enough due diligence to find that information.
Personally, even without the other studies I’ve read about the health benefits of vitamin C, studies like the Nurses Health Study that are reasonably well done & which include such large numbers over several years strike me as being close to conclusive.
Niacin Similarly, taking niacin is enormously protective for your heart & cardiovascular system.
It RAISES your beneficial HDL cholesterol better than anything else yet known. And, even if some of the drugs to do that eventually work, niacin will still be safer, likely as effective, & cost a LOT less.
It lowers your LDL cholesterol nearly as well as statin drugs. And, even more importantly, it causes much of your LDL cholesterol to bunch up into pillows of it that are too large to fit into the molecular chinks in your artery walls & prevents it from sticking to your blood vessels & causing high blood pressure & cardiovascular disease. (Regular exercise has all these same beneficial effects by the way.)
Taking niacin has been found to LOWER death rates.
So is it a hoax to suggest taking niacin? Is it sound advice to suggest ONLY eating tiny amounts in food instead? It certainly is NOT.
The evidence is that taking up to 1,000 mg a day is quite safe for most people. And, for people who take more than that, the risk of liver damage does exist.
And, if you do take three 500 mg capsules of time release niacin as heart health expert, Robert Kowalski, recommends & does himself, you do have to have periodic liver function blood tests to check for problems. But problems are not common & when problems occur cutting back the amount or discontinuing over the counter or prescription pain pills like NSAID’s or cutting back on excessive drinking often solve the problem & can be done in time to avoid permanent harm.
This is actually well known & the authors of this piece conveniently didn’t mention it.
Lycopene Lastly, 30 mg a day of lycopene, when taken in the form that is derived from extracts of real tomatoes did once test as slowing existing prostate cancer. And , it also has been found to significantly reduce blood pressure in people where it was too high before.
They are right to suggest eating tomatoes. They have other health benefits besides lycopene for example. And, eating tomato sauce is better as lycopene & the other carotenoids in tomatoes are more bioavailable when cooked & eaten with the extra virgin olive oil that is often in tomato sauces. You also wind up eating more tomatoes at a time.
The same kind of thing is true for the other vitamins they suggest NOT taking.
The bottom line is that almost all the conclusions they reach are wrong or stated in a way that LEAVES OUT the information that would enable readers to safely get the proven benefits of taking vitamins & the other supplements they include.
I’ve seen evidence in earlier times that the Readers Digest used to have higher standards.
X* X* X *X *X
They do quote a study that found that taking vitamins seemed to increase prostate cancer incidence or the amount of the more dangerous form.
A recent study found that eating either cauliflower or broccoli even once every week cut the incidence of the more dangerous form in half. So, even if the study showing this negative effect is true, I suspect you can take vitamins & eat those foods more than once a week and cancel out this effect even if it exists.
Many multivitamins contain iron & copper. These are valuable nutrients for many people. But some people don’t process iron well & get excessive iron build up. This also happens to some people with copper. And, if you take iron or copper, it’s important to keep your intake of saturated fat low as that high saturated fat plus taking iron or copper is apparently harmful. Keeping your saturated fat intake low is a good idea anyway, so that seems like the better way to solve that problem to me.
Those effects might explain this finding since most multivitamins contain copper & many contain iron though there are now multis that leave out iron.
But until further studies show more exactly what this effect is & confirm it exists, I remain skeptical. And, even then, I prefer to counteract the effect in other ways without losing the value of taking the vitamins.
Today's post: Wednesday, 10-24-2007
Some of you may have read the Reader’s Digest article recently called, “The Vitamin Hoax,”
I. Unfortunately, it gave & gives mostly bad & badly researched advice.
It’s main points that most people should try to rely on food only & to NOT take extra of certain vitamins & minerals at all is totally wrong to such an extent it’s very bad editorial judgment on the part of Reader’s Digest to publish it.
If someone reading their article, stops taking multivitamins or certain key vitamins at all, the evidence I’ve seen suggests they will harm their health.
II. First, here’s what they got right:
A. It says that the best way to get vitamins & mineral is to eat foods that contain them.
That’s important & it’s partly true for three reasons:
1. Really nutritious foods, like blueberries & broccoli for example, have an enormous amount of health enhancing & protecting nutrients besides the vitamins they contain. So eating a wide variety of nutrient rich or dense foods like most of the ones in the Readers Digest list is actually a good idea.
Using our two example foods, in addition to the vitamin C they contain, both blueberries & broccoli contain fiber that helps you feel full without getting fat; & they also contain potassium that helps keep your blood pressure low enough for good health. Blueberries also contain anthocyanins & flavonols that seem to improve mental functioning in older people & to prevent stroke & which may also help prevent all cardiovascular disease. And, broccoli contains many carotenoids which are also extremely valuable nutrients AND it contains at least two known cancer fighters besides the carotenoids.
2. Many vitamins are actually the best known or most important of a family of related life & health sustaining substances. But in foods rich in the vitamins in vitamin pills, you get the whole family of related nutrients. Vitamin E from foods, for example, is NOT just the alpha tocopherol that you get in vitamins. In addition to alpha tocopherol, there are 3 other tocopherols & four tocotrienols. You get those in foods like avocados, nuts, some leafy green vegetables, & wheat germ.
3. The vitamins stated on the labels of vitamin pills are often NOT the real vitamins. Many vitamins are organic molecules which are literally ONE of two mirror image molecules, called the left handed & the dex or right handed forms by chemists. Many vitamins made from synthetic sources are only half the real thing. Even if the mirror image version causes no problems, foods & vitamin pills that only contain vitamins from natural sources, have the real thing only & are at least twice as potent.
So, regardless of whether or not you take vitamins, they are right to recommend that you should eat as many of the foods high in them as you can.
(The tuna fish they recommend is often too high in mercury. And, they recommend meat & poultry which are too high in omega 6 oils & saturated fat when grain fed and which many people already eat more of then is good for them. Wild & pasture fed poultry & meat in moderation is much safer to eat & has some omega 3 oils. They also recommend fish. Similarly, farmed fish tend to be grain fed & so high in pollutants & low in omega 3’s they are likely best not eaten. Mercifully wild caught are mostly still good for you.
The good news is that, particularly if organically grown, the nuts, legumes, fruits & vegetables they recommend are good for you.)
B. Second, they got something right; but irresponsibly left out the most important parts. And, their coverage was incomplete. So the article is a very BAD guide for people.
Some vitamins are actually bad for people in excess. They did get that right.
But except by not taking any of the vitamins in question, which the research I’ve seen shows in extremely bad for people to do, they fail to give enough information to guide people in taking those vitamins.
The animal form of vitamin A is not good for you if you take 25,000 iu a day or more. But it does have some value. And, I’ve never heard of research saying that getting 5,000 iu from a supplement & another 5,000 iu from food has caused problems. And, most vitamins now only have 5,000 iu of beta carotene, the water soluble, plant form of vitamin A.
They do say that high levels of beta carotene from pills only did have a bad track record in smokers. But they don’t emphasize enough that taking some, 5,000 iu, PLUS eating a wide variety of vegetables high in the whole family of carotenoids has been shown to have the REVERSE & positive effect.
They suggest that taking folic acid, B6, & B12 can cause problems if not in balance. Then they say NOTHING about what an OK balance is. This is irresponsible & stupid in the extreme since taking these 3 vitamins is one of the best ways to lower homocysteine levels if they are high or to prevent them from getting high. And, high homocysteine increases your rate of aging; sharply increase your chance of dying soon; & causes cardiovascular disease.
If they know so much, why leave that information out?
Even worse, they left out that taking B6 in excess of 200 mg a day often causes neurological & sensory problems.
That’s actually well known. Why leave it out? But it’s also true that taking up to 100 mg a day total, for sure & maybe up to 200 mg & getting as much as you can in foods will either lower your blood pressure if it’s high or keep it low enough for good health to begin with.
Zinc can be harmful in excess. More than 50 mg a day for an extended period has the reverse effects of getting 25 to 45 mg a day. And, they leave out that if you get extra zinc, you may need to take a bit of extra copper as zinc & copper have bad effects if they are not balanced by about ten percent of the intake of zinc as copper. So taking 30 mg of zinc suggests you should also get a total of 3 mg of cooper each day. But to suggest NOT taking any zinc when the lower amount is actually proven to have health benefits is NOT sound or desirable. The lower amount, 25 to 45 mg a day total, actually boosts HDL levels which is heart protective & has other positive health effects. Their suggestion to simply leave those potential benefits on the table & not take any since too much has the reverse effect is not very bright.
C. They also probably got right that taking 2,000 mg of vitamin D3 is a good idea based on the recent research on this & more people getting outside in the sun less.
It works with calcium to keep your bones strong & your blood pressure low enough for good health. And it seems to improve immune functioning enough to prevent you from catching serious diseases like TB; get well faster; & to prevent or kill off cancer. It may also prevent or help treat autoimmune diseases like MS.
They don’t say that the form of vitamin D in most multivitamins is a form that is only about 30 % as strong as D3. (That means the 400 iu stated only has the effect of 120 of D3 though 120 is a LOT better than none.)
Oddly, like vitamin A, taking more than 25,000 iu a day for an extended period may not be wise. And, they say nothing about this.
Since it’s relatively easy to get up to 15,000 iu a day from summer sun exposure, taking up to 2,000 to 5,000 iu a day should be quite safe however.
III. The worst part of the article though is the part where it suggests that NOT taking any extra of most of the main vitamins is either desirable or good for your health.
And, here again they state correctly that some vitamins are harmful in excess but they ignore the proven benefits of lower amounts & do NOT state how much is definitely too much & how much is actually quite safe.
Here are a few examples.:
Vitamin C They state that there is no conclusive evidence taking it prevents heart disease. Unfortunately, they or the research they relied on seems to have conveniently ignored quite substantial research that basically proves this incorrect.
I got this in an email not long ago:
The Nurses' Health Study followed more than 85,000 women for up to 16 years. This study found that a higher intake (more than 359 mg a day from food and supplements) reduced cardiovascular risk by 27 percent.
Similarly, an analysis of NINE other studies of more than 290,000 people total found a 25 percent reduction in risk in people who took more than 700 mg vitamin C, compared with those who took none.
I find it strange that they would write an advice article in a publication like the Readers Digest that goes to millions of people & not do enough due diligence to find that information.
Personally, even without the other studies I’ve read about the health benefits of vitamin C, studies like the Nurses Health Study that are reasonably well done & which include such large numbers over several years strike me as being close to conclusive.
Niacin Similarly, taking niacin is enormously protective for your heart & cardiovascular system.
It RAISES your beneficial HDL cholesterol better than anything else yet known. And, even if some of the drugs to do that eventually work, niacin will still be safer, likely as effective, & cost a LOT less.
It lowers your LDL cholesterol nearly as well as statin drugs. And, even more importantly, it causes much of your LDL cholesterol to bunch up into pillows of it that are too large to fit into the molecular chinks in your artery walls & prevents it from sticking to your blood vessels & causing high blood pressure & cardiovascular disease. (Regular exercise has all these same beneficial effects by the way.)
Taking niacin has been found to LOWER death rates.
So is it a hoax to suggest taking niacin? Is it sound advice to suggest ONLY eating tiny amounts in food instead? It certainly is NOT.
The evidence is that taking up to 1,000 mg a day is quite safe for most people. And, for people who take more than that, the risk of liver damage does exist.
And, if you do take three 500 mg capsules of time release niacin as heart health expert, Robert Kowalski, recommends & does himself, you do have to have periodic liver function blood tests to check for problems. But problems are not common & when problems occur cutting back the amount or discontinuing over the counter or prescription pain pills like NSAID’s or cutting back on excessive drinking often solve the problem & can be done in time to avoid permanent harm.
This is actually well known & the authors of this piece conveniently didn’t mention it.
Lycopene Lastly, 30 mg a day of lycopene, when taken in the form that is derived from extracts of real tomatoes did once test as slowing existing prostate cancer. And , it also has been found to significantly reduce blood pressure in people where it was too high before.
They are right to suggest eating tomatoes. They have other health benefits besides lycopene for example. And, eating tomato sauce is better as lycopene & the other carotenoids in tomatoes are more bioavailable when cooked & eaten with the extra virgin olive oil that is often in tomato sauces. You also wind up eating more tomatoes at a time.
The same kind of thing is true for the other vitamins they suggest NOT taking.
The bottom line is that almost all the conclusions they reach are wrong or stated in a way that LEAVES OUT the information that would enable readers to safely get the proven benefits of taking vitamins & the other supplements they include.
I’ve seen evidence in earlier times that the Readers Digest used to have higher standards.
X* X* X *X *X
They do quote a study that found that taking vitamins seemed to increase prostate cancer incidence or the amount of the more dangerous form.
A recent study found that eating either cauliflower or broccoli even once every week cut the incidence of the more dangerous form in half. So, even if the study showing this negative effect is true, I suspect you can take vitamins & eat those foods more than once a week and cancel out this effect even if it exists.
Many multivitamins contain iron & copper. These are valuable nutrients for many people. But some people don’t process iron well & get excessive iron build up. This also happens to some people with copper. And, if you take iron or copper, it’s important to keep your intake of saturated fat low as that high saturated fat plus taking iron or copper is apparently harmful. Keeping your saturated fat intake low is a good idea anyway, so that seems like the better way to solve that problem to me.
Those effects might explain this finding since most multivitamins contain copper & many contain iron though there are now multis that leave out iron.
But until further studies show more exactly what this effect is & confirm it exists, I remain skeptical. And, even then, I prefer to counteract the effect in other ways without losing the value of taking the vitamins.
Labels: aggressive prostate cancer, heart health; Niacin, Lycopene, prostate cancer, Supplements, vitamin C, vitamins
posted by David at 2:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home