Posted on 05/14/2006 3:29:49 PM PDT by neverdem
LiveScience’s Bad Medicine Columnist
Studies showing the negative or null effects of vitamins supplements are so common that it is surprising doctors still find these studies to be surprising. Vitamins are not as simple as A-B-C.
The latest bit of confusion appears in the April 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Doctors in Australia provided nearly 1,900 pregnant women with either supplements of vitamins C and E or a placebo to see whether the vitamins would lower the risk of developing high blood pressure during pregnancy. It didn't work.
Surprisingly, the doctors said, the vitamin group had a slightly higher rate of high blood pressure compared to the placebo group.
We love our vitamins
The levels of vitamins C and E were greater than those found in an ordinary multivitamin tablet—1,000 milligrams of C and 400 IU of E, or roughly 10 and 20 times the recommended daily allowance. In an editorial accompanying the study, doctors said that supplements at these levels should not be prescribed routinely.
But we love our vitamins.
Americans spend about $2 billion a year on vitamins C and E, along with beta carotene (a precursor of vitamin A) and selenium, according to Nutrition Business Journal. These are the most popular antioxidants, a class of chemicals said to cure just about everything.
The trouble is, science can't seem to support the bad movie script created by the vitamin supplement industry.
No simple movie plot...
Here's the plot, a battle between good and evil: Rogue chemicals called free radicals roam about the body like brazen street punks, smashing cellular walls and roughing up innocent DNA molecules, causing cancers and the diseases of middle- and old-age. Their flagrant disregard for the law would continue unchecked if it weren't for swashbuckling antioxidants swooping in on the...
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Take the A train.
I love this quote from the end:
"People don't want to exercise," he said. "They don't want to eat healthy food. They don't want to stop drinking; they don't want to stop smoking; they don't want to stop having dangerous sex. They want to take a pill. Well, good luck."
ping
Looks like another study engineered to fail. The drug companies just can't stand the competition.
I was diagnosed with bronchits...I used to be a smoker and have been taking 10-15,000 mg of vitamin c everyday since without any flare up of it, thank God. It has also kept me from getting sick which I usually do a couple times a year. I know it's not a cure all but it does help alot and on the vitamin c foundations website are refrences to the many cures gotten by doctors using mega doses of vitamin c intravenously. I think the drug companies feel justified in downplaying and trying to find falsehoods about vitamins, that they believe, because there's alot more profit for them and there shareholders in selling their various drugs.
I'd rather take vitamins than the chemical gobbledygook produced by Big Drug.
Besides prenatal vitamins, the drugs approved for pregnant women are few and far between.
The reference to increased blood pressure was aimed at scaring all the old folks off vitamins.
Thanks - I'll check it out. Personally, I like my vitamins as they appear in food! I've always hated swallowing pills.
The results of the negative studies are a Rohrschach Test: You see what you want to see.
The results could mean any of "vitamins are bad," or "taking vitamins in pill form is bad," or "taking the wrong combinations of vitamins (and not including others that synergistically work together as a system) is bad."
Along your general line, I learned something from the "visiting nurse" who was looking in on my quite old parents....she advised that my mother be given a Zinc supplement daily since she tends to get decubitis (similar to bedsores). I believe it's helped stop recurrences.
That's hilarious. You don't think the vitamin and supplement industry is about making money? As for which to take, I'd rather something that is quantified and that has been proven rather than something (homeopathy) that claims to have nothing in it but fillers and a bit of witchcraft (dilute to the millionth power and stir a certain direction a certain number of times). Whenever I visualize homeopathy I visualize a witch's coven with tincture of bat blood and oil of newt with a few slogans being incanted over the cauldron.
I'm waiting for someone associated with Market America to start their anti-oxidant pitch any moment now........
My toxicology professor (PhD) in college was a charter member of the Oxygen Club and swore on anti oxidants.
I happen to trust his opinion more than those with an obvious agenda.
What vitamins in what doses are supposed to prevent or treat high blood pressure?
When I was pregnant (years and years ago); I took 1 pre-natal multi-vitamin and modified my diet.
Worked for me then.
Now, I take a number of vitamins/supplements daily and my doctors agree that I should stick with it.
Works for me now.
In the early 1960's, I had occasion to meet the scientist who isolated the B complex, and he told me that he never took vitamin pills.
Who mentioned homeopathy? That's just quack medicine that wasn't even part of the discussion. Vitamins and supplements are another matter entirely. There have been good studies showing the efficacy of supplements like zinc, fish oil and vitamin D.
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