False headlines & the truth about vitamins and minerals....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 3-13-2012

Most doctors know little about supplements including vitamins and minerals and are too busy to find out more unless they somehow get updated by their patients or other doctors who know more.

The drug companies don’t like the competition from those supplements that do work but have none of the side effects most of their drugs do and the supplements cost less.

(Some drugs do important things and do them fast that supplements cannot do. And, for some things the drugs are the better choice. Then too some supplements may not be that effective.

But the drug companies appear to be deliberately misinforming doctors and the media and thus many of the rest of us about supplements that do work.)

So you may have seen headlines like “Vitamins are a waste of money or dangerous” AND “Vitamin E causes Prostate Cancer.”

But the truth is far different. Very different!

1. Most vitamins and minerals are beneficial and some are spectacularly beneficial.

There a few vitamins and minerals that do have side effects in doses that are too large. But if you know what level is safe on those few, those same vitamins and minerals can benefit you.

This makes the headline, “Vitamins are a waste of money or dangerous” false & I think deliberately misleading.

2. We know 4 things about vitamin E and prostate cancer. The headline as quoted is completely false. And the other 3 things help prevent prostate cancer!

That headline isn’t just sloppy journalism it’s harmful to the public health and may even be deliberately publicized by the drug companies.

We’ll start with the vitamin E headline and go back to the other vitamins and minerals.

Vitamin E supplements come in two versions, the same vitamin E that’s in raw nuts, extra virgin olive oil, and avocados.

The other is man made and has different effects because it is different chemically.

Biologically effective compounds are like keys. The lock they are supposed to fit, does fit the natural compound. But if you use a molecule that is the mirror image of the real thing or has another chemical added to it, it often won’t fit the lock.

To get a safe and effective one, you have to use the natural version or make a truly identical version.

The commonly used and cheap man made vitamin E has both problems. In biological terms it isn’t really vitamin E at all!

So, if you study or read about vitamin E, it’s critical to know if the real version or the not that great man made version is what you are reading about!

a) The study that was done on real, natural vitamin E that I read of found that it did somewhat lower prostate cancer risk.

b) One of the forms of the vitamin E complex, gamma tocopherol, is actually very preventive of prostate cancer. If you aren’t allergic to tree nuts, raw pecans are high in it. And you can, so far, buy it as a supplement.

c) The study the headline refers to did NOT test vitamin E, they tested a double dose of the cheap and not too great man made vitamin E substitute instead.

They did not test the real vitamin E at all. But they did find that taking a double dose of the cheap man made vitamin E substitute DID increase the risk for prostate cancer.

d) The people in the study who took the double dose of the cheap man made vitamin E substitute AND took selenium were protected from that effect.

So, if you read the headline and take no real vitamin E because of the headline, you might get prostate cancer that more accurate information would have protected you from.

The real headline did NOT show up at all that I know of:

“Vitamin E itself may be helpful but the cheap man-made substitute caused prostate cancer.”

So, what to do?

The FDA should ban using the cheap man-made substitute for vitamin E in doses over 30 mg at the very least and strongly recommend its use be discontinued.

Since they haven’t, by all means do this for yourself! Never take the cheap man-made substitute for vitamin E in doses over 30 mg.

If you take vitamin E extra, ONLY buy natural vitamin E and/or the gamma tocopherol member of the E complex.

Eat the real foods that contain all of the vitamin E complex.

And take 200 mcg of selenium.

(For preventing the aggressive form of prostate cancer, eat raw broccoli or cauliflower florets every day or most days of every week. Studies found that cut your chances of getting the aggressive form of prostate cancer in about half.)

The reality is that you can take the real vitamin E and be less likely to get or be harmed by prostate cancer.

In this case an inaccurate headline and reporting can harm you and likely has harmed many people.

I see I’m out of time for this week. But I’ll resume covering the other vitamins and minerals next week.

Far from being useless and a waste of money, two vitamins are so beneficial they actually were tested to lower the death rate of people who took them. One of those even slashed the health care costs of the people who made sure to take enough!

Two vitamins, retinol the animal version of vitamin A and B6; and five minerals, calcium, copper, iron, selenium, and zinc can be risky in doses that are too large however, and we will cover those too.

If you know to take less of those they can still be quite beneficial despite that. Just find out the amount that IS safe to take and take that.

We will cover that next week or the week after.

How to prevent prostate cancer and aggressive prostate cancer....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 11-15-2011

Given our family history, both my grandfathers had it and my dad did also, I’ve known it was likely I’d get it too.

My plan has been to make it less likely, smaller, slower growing, and keep it from being or becoming the aggressive kind.

I've done many things to do so. And, there is research showing each of them works!

The few PSA tests I've had have been low but not zero. If memory serves, they have run about 2.7 but not gone up. I think this fits my supposition and given the things I've done to prevent the aggressive kind of prostate cancer, cancer in general, and any prostate cancer in particular.

I summarize most of what I do in this post. Some of it is NOT that hard and gives surprisingly effective protection.

[The FDA has announced plans to pull virtually all the supplements included in my efforts! They must want health care costs and suffering and disability to go up.

(Of course they and their friends in the less ethical drug companies will be very pleased taking in this money and with the undeserved monopoly.)

My long term efforts are to prevent cancer and prostate cancer including the supplements if possible. So, my efforts now include my aggressive short term efforts to prevent this harm from the FDA.

Even more than just our health, our economy will be severely harmed if the FDA is allowed to use its proposed policy. That's because this added health care cost hit will be on top of the added surge in health care costs from the aging of my, baby boom, generation and surge from the heavy consumers of soft drink and junk food generations that follow us.]

A. Here's what I do to prevent aggressive prostate cancer. If the research is correct, I'm cutting my chances of getting it by 50 to 75% or even more with just these two things.

1. Men who eat RAW broccoli florets or cauliflower florets at least once each week cut their risk of aggressive prostate cancer in half. Since I read that, part of my every weekday lunch is to eat a serving or two of raw broccoli florets.

(My younger brother on hearing this said he wasn’t that fond of either broccoli or cauliflower but might be able to get used to it.

Here’s what I suggested:

Most of my broccoli is in my weekday lunch. I finish my breakfast about 6:10 am and eat my lunch at about 11:40 am plus the broccoli is the second thing I eat. That saying hunger is the best sauce is quite true.

Both are crunchy but not difficult to eat. That part I like!

Some things I eat or don't eat because I know their effects and have decided to virtually always go by that regardless.

Beyond that, you do begin to get used to and appreciate what you eat most of the time.

If you need more, try eating them with a dip you like two or three times each week. Low fat Greek yogurt with a curry powder you like, a hummus you like, or guacamole if you like -- it all tastes great and each has health benefits too.

2. I've taken the supplement tri-boron from Twinlab for many years because I read I'd be enough more alert each day to make it worthwhile if I did. Of course I still do.

So, I was delighted to read that research shows that doing just that ALSO cuts my risk of aggressive prostate cancer in half! Al Sears MD wrote that taking boron as I’ve been doing also cuts your risk of aggressive prostate cancer in half.

B. Key ways I prevent all cancers including prostate cancer:

Eating raw cruciferous vegetables of all kinds several times a week also helps prevent all kinds of cancer because of the two or three phytonutrients in it that fight all cancers. (Cooked, they have other benefits some of which help fight cancer somewhat also. But the most effective cancer fighters in them are destroyed by heat.)

Staying away from all tobacco smoke or taking every opportunity you possibly can to avoid any or move briskly away from it cuts the risk of ALL cancers of the people who do it by 30 % or a bit more.

(Snuff and chewing tobacco may do this a bit less.)

This is partly because it was recently found that one of the reasons for this is that ALL tobacco today contains the radioactive element polonium because it's in the fertilizer used on tobacco. So, if you once breathe it in or eat it, the polonium gets into your blood stream and goes everywhere in your body.

New research has found two major ways that both prevent all cancers and very well may prevent Alzheimer's disease as well.

1. Eating curried foods with turmeric and black pepper both in them -- or taking turmeric or curcumin supplements with a bit of black pepper on a spoon once a day does this.

(I'd begun doing both to prevent Alzheimer's disease. Since then I learned doing so also prevents most cancers.

And doing so at the same time as ingesting black pepper has been found to multiply this effect in both cancer prevention AND Alzheimer's disease in separate research! For cancer prevention the well thought of doctor expert in that field who wrote the book, Anticancer said adding the black pepper increases the effect by as much as 200 times!)

2. Your body kills cancer cells and prevents damaged cells from becoming cancer by killing them off with its immune system. But research has found that the killer cells of your immune system need plentiful access to vitamin D3 to be fully operational, armed, and effective.

So, because of this, people who take between 4,000 and 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 get far fewer cancers. (It too helps prevent Alzheimer's disease apparently by helping your immune system clean the amyloid plaques from your brain better. Turmeric and black pepper does this also; but in addition prevents most of the damage by slashing the amount of tau protein that causes it to begin with.)

I take 8200 iu a day of vitamin D3 with the 5,000 iu part at lunch. (For comparison, a two hour walk or swim on a sunny mid-summer day causes your body to make 10,000 to 20,000 iu a day of vitamin D3. So, despite the large sounding doses, 4,000 to 10,000 iu a day of vitamin D3 is a reasonable amount.)

C. A few years ago, it was in TIME magazine that men taking 30 mg a day of the carotenoid lycopene with a bit of oil had their prostate cancer shrink and their PSA readings go down. This had been tested because it was found that men who often ate tomato sauce with extra virgin olive oil or even junk oils in Italian foods or even Pizza had less prostate cancer at all.

Since I read that, I've done both every week. I take 30 mg of lycopene daily and 5 to 7 days a week I have a pasta sauce with extra virgin olive oil as part of my dinner.

I take 30 mg of lycopene each morning with some lowfat milk. And, six or seven evenings most weeks, I eat either wild caught, canned Salmon or cooked pinto beans with a good tasting tomato based pasta sauce with some extra virgin olive oil.

C. More ways to prevent prostate cancer include these:

1. I do NOT take man made vitamin E. A study the headlines said found taking vitamin E made prostate cancer more likely.

The study did no such thing!!

It found that men who took a double dose of the cheaper man made vitamin E had this result.

A key identical to the one to your home but the mirror image of it won’t let you in your house because it won’t fit into the lock!

In the same way more complex organic molecules have a right handed and left handed version. Sometimes they both are beneficial.

But often only one of these forms is the natural version. When that happens, it’s common for the mirror image version to be somewhat harmful. That means a mix of half the natural one and half the reverse one is not that great for you either.

BEFORE this research was done, knowledgeable people already knew that only the natural version of vitamin E was beneficial and that the mirror image version was problematic.

2. In fact, an earlier study, likely using natural vitamin E, found that taking it REDUCED the incidence of prostate cancer.

But there’s more. Alpha tocopherol is only one of the natural components of the vitamin E complex. In foods, it tends to appear with beta, delta, and gamma tocopherol.

Why is that significant?

Research has found that natural gamma tocopherol for sure cuts the incidence of prostate cancer!

There are gamma tocopherol supplements for that exact reason.

Because gamma tocopherol may work best taken along with the other tocopherols, I take Solgar’s 200 iu natural vitamin E with mixed beta, delta, and gamma tocopherols. And, I eat extra virgin olive oil, raw walnuts, raw pecans, and almond butter.

That way I get my vitamin E in foods AND each of these foods has its own additional health benefits. Avocadoes and guacamole also fit; but I eat it less often.

Except for people allergic to tree nuts, these health benefits are so good people who do this have better health and live longer!

3. In the artificial vitamin E study, they did find one effect that prevented the artificial vitamin E from causing extra prostate cancer! The people in that subgroup also took the antioxidant mineral selenium.

In the 200 mcg size sold as a once a day supplement, selenium is an antioxidant that some research has suggested helps prevent all cancers. Apparently it does help prevent prostate cancer. And, I’ve take one a day for years now.

(Note that selenium is toxic in large doses. So taking more than one a day is likely not wise!)

Lastly, if the FDA manages to remove all supplements as it is threatening to do, one brazil nut a day contains about 200 mcg of selenium.

In fact, that may be a superior way to take it. One man reports that the selenium in brazil nuts is more bioavailable than it is in the supplements.

Given our family history, I think I've done the prudent thing.

And, any of this you do, I believe will give you similar protection.