Negative news on supplements may NOT be real...
Today's Post: Thursday, 10-13-2011
Two news items this week sounded like taking supplements was a bad idea.
And they were mostly presented as if the news source wanted to be sure to leave that impression.
In my opinion, they found the equivalent of overeating apples can cause a stomach ache and then said not to eat oranges.
Why would this happen? It looks to me as if it might be systematic influence by money from drug company executives trying to do a character assassination on their competition.
If they get people to believe supplements are not needed and harmful, in those cases where there are supplements that do a better, cheaper, and much safer job, they might get away with selling them inferior solutions. This would make them a lot more money. But the public health, the cost of health care, and individual health and pocket books would all suffer.
Drug companies provide a real service. They do make drugs that can help people get well or reverse disease faster than other methods. I support them in that and making money from doing so.
But undermining the competition when it’s mostly about making more money by establishing a monopoly while harming everyone else is simply unethical.
To me these studies and the publicity for them and the added but mostly untrue editorial comments in each article strongly suggest their influence behind the scenes.
The first study to appear was titled: “Vitamins Don't Boost Longevity Tuesday.”
It led with this: “Women taking multivitamins don't live longer than those who get their nutrients from food alone, a new U.S. study shows. In fact, they appear to have slightly higher death rates, researchers found.”
And, early in the article, this editorial comment was included:
"There is very little evidence showing that common dietary supplements would be beneficial in prevention of major chronic diseases," said Dr. Jaakko Mursu of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who worked on the new study.
"Unless you are deficient, there is hardly any reason to take them,"
They do not actually report many details of the study in the article released to the public.
But the statement ” There is very little evidence showing that common dietary supplements would be beneficial in prevention of major chronic diseases” is totally false.
We’ve posted dozens of articles with many kinds of supplements that have been found effective in preventing several major chronic diseases.
These have often been due to studies finding those supplements effective.
In my own case, I’ve lowered my undesirable LDL cholesterol from 130 to 73 with supplements. And I have the blood test records to prove it.
The doctor is either deliberately lying or horribly underinformed. Either way he is completely wrong and doing harm to the public with this comment.
The article also had this: “…research suggests that some of the largely unregulated substances — such as vitamins A and E — could be harmful in high doses, according to an editorial published along with the new findings in the Archives of Internal Medicine.”
Supplements are NOT unregulated. They are subject to many regulations including some that are quite reasonable and some that are not.
To be fair, it has been found that very large amounts of the animal sourced vitamin A, retinol, massive doses of vitamin E, high doses of vitamin B6, and excessive doses of selenium can be harmful.
But instead of informing people about this, the thrust of this comment is to try to prevent access instead of giving people the actual facts and letting them decide.
Worse, in vitamin C and vitamin D3, and some others, the most health benefits are found in much higher doses than the amount needed to prevent very severe deficiencies.
The study itself found that women who take calcium lived longer and taking iron sometimes was unwise.
The calcium finding reveals the basic flaw of this study.
New information finds that women taking calcium supplements increase their chances of high blood pressure and heart attacks by taking calcium as a supplements.
Bingo! Taking calcium as a supplement likely shortens life. Yet this study found the opposite.
How could that be?
Simple, with the exception of the iron finding, this shows that who the people were who were studied had more influence on the results than the actual effects from the supplements.
That means the conclusions being taken from it are likely completely unsupported. More careful studies that pay attention to who the people are and how exactly they take supplements simply are unlikely to get the same result.
Most women who took calcium supplements in the time period of this study were advised to do so by their doctors.
We now know that taking calcium supplements does more harm than good and that weight bearing exercise, eating foods with calcium and taking supplements of vitamin D3 and magnesium and drinking NO soft drinks in combination are what is needed to prevent osteoporosis safely.
But women educated well enough and affluent enough to see doctors live longer than those who don’t. So, despite the risks of heart disease at older ages from taking calcium supplements the women who did lived longer. But since that particular supplement reduces lifespan, the finding of this study found that women educated well enough and affluent enough to see doctors live longer than those who don’t.
The calcium supplements almost certainly can take no credit for them living longer.
What about the more general finding that women who took supplements lived slightly fewer years?
There are three reasons in my view, NONE of which shows the supplements had anything to do with the results.
People who smoke or are fat or who do no exercise live fewer years than people who do the opposite. And, in the case of smokers, the effects are very great.
There are people who take a simple multivitamin and who smoke or are fat or who do no exercise who hope that their inaction on these more serious problems will go away from taking a simple multivitamin.
They will live fewer years as a simple multivitamin has too little effect to compensate for their inaction.
Did this study carefully exclude such people so it actually looked at people that a simple multivitamin might have benefitted instead.
Nope!
Second, a simple multivitamin for many vitamins and minerals is ONLY useful to help contribute to the higher amounts that are actually needed to have good health effects.
They do have enough iodine to do the job for most people. And for some people they can have enough vitamin B2 to be helpful. But since they have below the optimal amounts of vitamin C and far less for vitamin D3 and niacin and lack certain key B vitamins, only those people who add those things really get the full effects on benefitting their health.
Did this study look at THOSE people? Nope!
Third, this study was of inexpensive multi vitamins. The cheaper and man made versions of many vitamins in them can be enough to prevent deficiency. But for the best benefits you need the natural versions from food or from supplements ONLY containing the natural versions.
This is critical for analyzing results for vitamin C and E for example. Just like an accurate but backwards key won’t turn locks the right version will do, the mirror image molecule of natural vitamin C or E or a 50-50 mix cannot be expected to get the results of only the natural kind.
There is even some evidence that larger doses of vitamin E using the man made version can be harmful. Because it’s cheaper many studies have used the man made version instead of the man made one.
Next week we will do a post on the vitamin E study because that was one of the likely reasons for the negative finding that study had.
Today's Post: Thursday, 10-13-2011
Two news items this week sounded like taking supplements was a bad idea.
And they were mostly presented as if the news source wanted to be sure to leave that impression.
In my opinion, they found the equivalent of overeating apples can cause a stomach ache and then said not to eat oranges.
Why would this happen? It looks to me as if it might be systematic influence by money from drug company executives trying to do a character assassination on their competition.
If they get people to believe supplements are not needed and harmful, in those cases where there are supplements that do a better, cheaper, and much safer job, they might get away with selling them inferior solutions. This would make them a lot more money. But the public health, the cost of health care, and individual health and pocket books would all suffer.
Drug companies provide a real service. They do make drugs that can help people get well or reverse disease faster than other methods. I support them in that and making money from doing so.
But undermining the competition when it’s mostly about making more money by establishing a monopoly while harming everyone else is simply unethical.
To me these studies and the publicity for them and the added but mostly untrue editorial comments in each article strongly suggest their influence behind the scenes.
The first study to appear was titled: “Vitamins Don't Boost Longevity Tuesday.”
It led with this: “Women taking multivitamins don't live longer than those who get their nutrients from food alone, a new U.S. study shows. In fact, they appear to have slightly higher death rates, researchers found.”
And, early in the article, this editorial comment was included:
"There is very little evidence showing that common dietary supplements would be beneficial in prevention of major chronic diseases," said Dr. Jaakko Mursu of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, who worked on the new study.
"Unless you are deficient, there is hardly any reason to take them,"
They do not actually report many details of the study in the article released to the public.
But the statement ” There is very little evidence showing that common dietary supplements would be beneficial in prevention of major chronic diseases” is totally false.
We’ve posted dozens of articles with many kinds of supplements that have been found effective in preventing several major chronic diseases.
These have often been due to studies finding those supplements effective.
In my own case, I’ve lowered my undesirable LDL cholesterol from 130 to 73 with supplements. And I have the blood test records to prove it.
The doctor is either deliberately lying or horribly underinformed. Either way he is completely wrong and doing harm to the public with this comment.
The article also had this: “…research suggests that some of the largely unregulated substances — such as vitamins A and E — could be harmful in high doses, according to an editorial published along with the new findings in the Archives of Internal Medicine.”
Supplements are NOT unregulated. They are subject to many regulations including some that are quite reasonable and some that are not.
To be fair, it has been found that very large amounts of the animal sourced vitamin A, retinol, massive doses of vitamin E, high doses of vitamin B6, and excessive doses of selenium can be harmful.
But instead of informing people about this, the thrust of this comment is to try to prevent access instead of giving people the actual facts and letting them decide.
Worse, in vitamin C and vitamin D3, and some others, the most health benefits are found in much higher doses than the amount needed to prevent very severe deficiencies.
The study itself found that women who take calcium lived longer and taking iron sometimes was unwise.
The calcium finding reveals the basic flaw of this study.
New information finds that women taking calcium supplements increase their chances of high blood pressure and heart attacks by taking calcium as a supplements.
Bingo! Taking calcium as a supplement likely shortens life. Yet this study found the opposite.
How could that be?
Simple, with the exception of the iron finding, this shows that who the people were who were studied had more influence on the results than the actual effects from the supplements.
That means the conclusions being taken from it are likely completely unsupported. More careful studies that pay attention to who the people are and how exactly they take supplements simply are unlikely to get the same result.
Most women who took calcium supplements in the time period of this study were advised to do so by their doctors.
We now know that taking calcium supplements does more harm than good and that weight bearing exercise, eating foods with calcium and taking supplements of vitamin D3 and magnesium and drinking NO soft drinks in combination are what is needed to prevent osteoporosis safely.
But women educated well enough and affluent enough to see doctors live longer than those who don’t. So, despite the risks of heart disease at older ages from taking calcium supplements the women who did lived longer. But since that particular supplement reduces lifespan, the finding of this study found that women educated well enough and affluent enough to see doctors live longer than those who don’t.
The calcium supplements almost certainly can take no credit for them living longer.
What about the more general finding that women who took supplements lived slightly fewer years?
There are three reasons in my view, NONE of which shows the supplements had anything to do with the results.
People who smoke or are fat or who do no exercise live fewer years than people who do the opposite. And, in the case of smokers, the effects are very great.
There are people who take a simple multivitamin and who smoke or are fat or who do no exercise who hope that their inaction on these more serious problems will go away from taking a simple multivitamin.
They will live fewer years as a simple multivitamin has too little effect to compensate for their inaction.
Did this study carefully exclude such people so it actually looked at people that a simple multivitamin might have benefitted instead.
Nope!
Second, a simple multivitamin for many vitamins and minerals is ONLY useful to help contribute to the higher amounts that are actually needed to have good health effects.
They do have enough iodine to do the job for most people. And for some people they can have enough vitamin B2 to be helpful. But since they have below the optimal amounts of vitamin C and far less for vitamin D3 and niacin and lack certain key B vitamins, only those people who add those things really get the full effects on benefitting their health.
Did this study look at THOSE people? Nope!
Third, this study was of inexpensive multi vitamins. The cheaper and man made versions of many vitamins in them can be enough to prevent deficiency. But for the best benefits you need the natural versions from food or from supplements ONLY containing the natural versions.
This is critical for analyzing results for vitamin C and E for example. Just like an accurate but backwards key won’t turn locks the right version will do, the mirror image molecule of natural vitamin C or E or a 50-50 mix cannot be expected to get the results of only the natural kind.
There is even some evidence that larger doses of vitamin E using the man made version can be harmful. Because it’s cheaper many studies have used the man made version instead of the man made one.
Next week we will do a post on the vitamin E study because that was one of the likely reasons for the negative finding that study had.
Labels: false conclusions and comments in recent supplement studies, recent supplement studies too badly designed to test what the headlines said they tested
posted by David at 3:27 PM
1 Comments:
This study was even more flawed than I originally thought!
I got this from the Alliance for Natural Health:
"Shame on AMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine—October 18, 2011
New info about last week’s horribly flawed vitamin study.
This story keeps getting worse and worse.
Last Monday the Archives of Internal Medicine released a study claiming that vitamin use might lead to an earlier death. This set off a major media feeding frenzy, wave after wave of scary stories. Fox’s headline was typical: “Are Your Supplements Killing You?”
In our article last Tuesday, we pointed out that the study was “junk science” at its worst. The data were “observational”: women in Iowa were asked what supplements they were taking three times over eighteen years—that is every six years. Who remembers what they have taken over six years?
In addition, it was all anecdotal: you didn’t have to say what you were taking specifically, just vague terms like “multivitamin.” Were the vitamins synthetic or natural? How much did they take? Did they really take it, and for how long? Did they take it to stay healthy or because they had become very ill, perhaps with cancer? No one knows.
The next day, Dr. Robert Verkerk, our scientific director, weighed in. His analysis reveals, among many other interesting points, that all of the data was “adjusted” by the authors using methods of their own choice. If you look at the study itself, the first thing you see is an adjustment for “age and energy,” whatever “energy” means in this case. After this adjustment, vitamins C, B complex, E, D, as well as calcium, magnesium, selenium, and zinc all appear to add to years lived.
This evidently wasn’t an acceptable conclusion. So two more adjustments were made. First, if you had a healthy lifestyle and took vitamin C and lived longer, the longer life was attributed largely to the healthy lifestyle and not to the vitamin C. That put everything except B complex and calcium into neutral or negative territory.
Still the authors weren’t satisfied. They adjusted again, this time for healthy eating, with the result that every supplement except calcium, B complex, and vitamin D became a contributor to an earlier death, according to this undocumented and completely loony math, and only calcium actually lengthened life. Not surprisingly, almost none of this—except possibly for the the use of copper supplements taken by 24 women at the end of the study—could be claimed to be statistically significant, even using the authors’ own methods.
The only accurate conclusion that can be drawn from this data is that supplement users are generally healthier people.
The authors of the study admitted they started out with a hypothesis that supplements wouldn’t add to life. It appears, although it is not revealed, that the supplement users actually lived longer than the non-supplement users.
But the authors just manipulated the data until they got what they wanted and more: Supplements not only didn’t help—they were killers! And the lazy, biased, or naïve major media took it from there.
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