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Dietary and Nutritional Supplements: Know More About Supplements
At times, due to your busy and fast life, we tend to miss out on the essential nutrients such as protien, vitamins and minerals which are responsible for our good health. Good nutrition is the most important factor in achieving optimal...
Health And The Economy
Copyright 2005 Dr Randy Wysong
We normally do not think that health is related to economics other than with regard to the costs of medical care. But there is another more fundamental way money impacts our wellbeing. If you could not pay your...
Think and Grow Well
It is important to your health to keep a positive attitude. Your mental attitude is directly connected to your physical state. You’ve heard the saying “you are as young as you feel.” It turns out there is something to it. Your attitude affects...
Vitamins and Minerals Good or Bad
www.anewlife.co.uk Health News
Hello again
Unfortunately, this is long email - probably the longest we have ever done, but after the critical report regarding vitamins and minerals from the Food Standards Agency that was printed in The...
Who else wants to build muscle mass?
I see it all the time. Guys in the gym doing set after set of all these different exercises, and if you looked at these same people 3 months from now they have not really changed physically all that much, maybe a little more toned but nothing really...
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Is Vitamin E Lethal?
Recently the news carried the story that a researcher had discovered that taking vitamin E at a level of 400IU or more increases the risk of death. (Jan 2005, Annals of Internal Medicine http://www.annals.org/content/vol142/issue1/) I was immediately suspicious because I have studied the scientific literature on vitamin E for over two decades and have come to the exact opposite conclusion. Hundreds of studies have shown the beneficial effects of vitamin E on numerous modern diseases including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, claudication, arthritis, fibrocystic breast disease, epilepsy, infertility, intelligence…you name it. This evidence comes from carefully controlled clinical trials and meta-nalyses and is published in peer-reviewed publications. So what gives with this new “scoop?” Why did it receive the headlines while all the other studies aren’t?
Actually this new information is not new at all. The researcher merely investigated mortality statistics from existing studies and came to a conclusion that people should not take 400IUs of vitamin E (exactly what I have been taking for years and recommending to others) or they may die. In effect he wrote an editorial on other people’s work. That is not science.
Although the writer conceded his conclusions may only apply to those who are already seriously ill and not to healthy people, that is the only balance given in the article. He examined 19 different vitamin E studies performed by others including almost 140,000 people. Surely it would seem statistical meaning would emerge out of that. But as science (and life) always goes, the truth is in the details…details too often left out.
For example in one of the 19 studies, large doses of zinc were also given and this can create a copper deficiency which can lead to heart and other diseases. Although a copper supplement was given, it was in the form of cupric oxide, which is poorly absorbed in the gut.
In another of the studies the group being given the vitamin E were much sicker to begin with, including larger numbers of smokers and higher numbers of those with coronary artery disease and high blood pressure. Of course there will be greater mortality in such a group, but it would have nothing to do with the vitamin E they were taking.
Another study was skewed by the fact that participants were also taking a synthetic form of beta-carotene, which has been linked to increased lung cancer and liver damage. You can’t give vitamin E and synthetic beta-carotene to a group and blame mortality on vitamin E!
Finally, not one of the studies used the natural form of vitamin E. Vitamin E is a mixture of tocopherols: alpha, beta, gamma and delta. But only alpha- tocopheral was used. Not only that, but the synthetic isomeric form, D, L-alpha tocopherol was used in many of the studies. Natural vitamin E exists in only the D isomeric form. The synthetic L form is not produced in nature and may even interfere with the benefits of the natural D form.
The
gamma-tocopherol has many proven life-lengthening and disease preventing benefits but when high levels of alpha-tocopherol are consumed these benefits may be cancelled by a kind of biochemical interference. Therefore, whatever gamma-tocopherol was being consumed in the diet may have been cancelled out by the supplements in the study.
When one is done looking at the details behind the headlines there remains no basis for suggesting that high levels of natural vitamin E are dangerous, but rather, when considering the entire body of scientific evidence, there is significant reason for believing exactly the opposite! So much for headlines.
Perhaps more important than the misleading nature of the story is the reason why it would receive top billing. News organizations seem to be fiendishly rubbing their hands together just waiting for any little tidbit that could debunk the value of supplements or a natural approach to health. (They receive huge advertising dollars from the pharmaceutical and other medical industries.) Of course the medical community is right there ready to pile on as well. They have a vested interest in maintaining the popular mindset that disease is just one of those things that happen, that people are victims of disease, and doctors are needed for repair. The notion that supplements, food, and lifestyle can prevent or cure disease threatens their grip and profitability.
Never mind that modern health care is the greatest threat to life and health, killing more people than any other cause. (Wysong e-Health Letter: June 19, 2002) That’s not worthy of news, but scaring people away from supplements based upon a flawed study is. We do not live in a rational world.
Is vitamin E supplementation necessary? No, not if you are eating a varied diet of raw, organic, natural foods, living out of doors, exercising daily and are not subject to any workplace or other environmental pollutants. If that is not how you are living, then 400IU of a natural vitamin E tocopherol mix is a very good idea. It is logical since it replaces what would be present in a natural raw diet and helps offset modern toxins, pollutants and stresses. It is also supported by a mountain of good scientific research.
Dr. Wysong is a former veterinary clinician and surgeon, college instructor in human anatomy, physiology and the origin of life, inventor of numerous medical, surgical, nutritional, athletic and fitness products and devices, research director for the present company by his name and founder of the philanthropic Wysong Institute. He is author of The Creation-Evolution Controversy now in its eleventh printing, a new two volume set on philosophy for living entitled Thinking Matters: 1-Living Life... As If Thinking Matters; 2-The Big Questions...As If Thinking Matters, several books on nutrition, prevention and health for people and animals and over 15 years of monthly health newsletters. He may be contacted at Wysong@Wysong.net and a free subscription to his e-Health Letter is available at http://www.wysong.net.
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