Recent Headline about vitamin E is NOT accurate....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 10-18-2011

Most health oriented men want very much to avoid prostate cancer. And, they are right to want to avoid it!

So just a headline saying something like,
“Men taking vitamin E more likely to get prostate cancer” can cause some men never to take vitamin E again even if they didn’t read the article!

But if you read the study this headline was based on, you’d be in for a shock.

This research did NOT test vitamin E!

In fact, it tested a different substance that has tested as somewhat harmful in other studies. Yep. That’s really what they did!

For some supplements, the man made version is the same as the natural one. Magnesium citrate is an example.

But with vitamin E, that is simply NOT the case. The real vitamin E is alpha tocopherol from natural sources. The manmade version is NOT the same substance. But of course it is far cheaper. This study tested that, the manmade version of vitamin E. It did NOT test vitamin E!

(The cheaper and man made versions of many vitamins 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 turn, 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.)

To be fair, the news coverage – INSIDE in the actual article – did note that a different test of vitamin E (which likely actually tested natural vitamin E) found that prostate cancer went DOWN in the group that tested it.

But the case that this was not about testing supplements at all is made further by the fact that in doses of half as much as in this study, real vitamin E taken WITH adequate vitamin C provides some heart attack protection.

That’s how vitamin E is actually used normally. Did they test people taking that combination to see if their risk of cancer or prostate cancer went up and using the normal 200 iu amount of real vitamin E?

No. It wasn’t even close. They did NOT do that.

But it gets worse! Alpha tocopherol is only the best known of the tocopherols.

There is evidence that GAMMA tocopherol DOES lower the risk of prostate cancer.

Neither the researchers or seeming experts quoted as commenting on this bogus study said anything at all about that!

This suggests strongly that these researchers and seeming experts were more interested in creating the belief that supplements are harmful and must be tested before we can take them.

They show no real interest in helping men prevent prostate cancer at all!

“People tend to think of vitamins as innocuous substances, almost like chicken soup — take a little and it can't hurt," said lead author Dr. Eric Klein of the Cleveland Clinic. The study shows that is not true.”

Since they didn’t actually test vitamin E but an inferior substitute and tested it in ways people don’t actually take the real vitamin E --

HIS study shows nothing of the kind!

It’s as if someone wanted that statement to be believed.

Unfortunately, that may well be the case.

Publicizing that statement to people and to doctors who are unaware it’s based on false evidence & doing so in news sources all over the country may have been the real agenda here.

But why?

The problem is that for many disease and conditions, supplements exist that can prevent them or help them get better that DO work and have few if any side effects.

Drugs to do these things cost more and often are less effective or come with obnoxious or even harmful side effects.

People who take supplements in these ways as I do, tend to stay well and avoid taking drugs unless they get sick and actually need the drugs.

But if everyone did that, the drug companies would lose tens of billions of dollars a year in sales they have now. And if more people ate better and exercised and didn’t smoke AND knew to take these supplements too, the losses to the drug companies could easily quadruple!

So, they are systematically doing their best to use these big lie techniques to persuade politicians, doctors, and regulators to eliminate the access of people to these supplements.

If they succeed, more people will get sick and our health care costs will go up even more – and most of these added costs will go into their pockets.

Are there ethical drug companies? Are there people in drug companies who care about making people well and only earning money from doing so? Are there drugs that actually do help people get well?

Of course there are. And, I do NOT advocate harming these legitimate parts of the industry.

But many of the big companies, it seems, want the monopoly power to exclude competition that does help people stay well and does so better and at a lower price.

If the current FDA NDI guidance goes into effect, the unethical part of the drug industry will have won.

These supplements will no longer be available anywhere to anyone.

But virtually everyone else will lose. And, they will lose BIG.

A family often now buys less things of value and saves less and has less discretionary income to buy nice extras because they pay 12 to 15% of their real income on medical care. (It used to be a lot less.)

Because of the Baby Boom generation turning 65 and the huge amount of younger people who will get sick due to eating junk food and the like, the percentage is already going to go to the 15 to 19 range soon.

If the protective supplements become unavailable as the unethical people in the drug industry have been working to make happen, that percentage may go to the 18 to 25% range instead.

Say hello to the permanent recession if that happens!

That’s why headlines and coverage of such misleading and badly done research as this bogus vitamin E study are so horrible.

They could easily help that to occur.