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Posted on 11/03/2011 9:56:57 AM PDT by djf
Over the past 27 years — the complete time frame that the data has been available — there have been 0 deaths as a result of vitamins and over 3 million deaths related to prescription drug use. In fact, going back 54 years there have only been 11 claims of vitamin-related death, all of which provided no substantial evidence to link vitamins to the cause of death. The news comes after a recent statistically analysis found that pharmaceutical drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the US. In 2009, drugs exceeded the amount of traffic-related deaths, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide.
(Excerpt) Read more at naturalsociety.com ...
Very, very long PDF report at the end of the article that summarizes the data.
Big-Pharm SUCKS!! All their lawyers too !!
If you take a daily multivitamin, you will live less long than if you do not -- that's what the peer reviewed scientific data says.
That's terrorist thinking.
/helpless sheeple think
If you are going to say that, you should be prepared to provide pointers and links to that data.
So please provide pointers or links.
You sayin a milti-vitamin reduces life expectancy?
There are so many older people that take a menagerie of different drugs, I am extremely suspicious of the side effects of just one, but when you have a cocktail of 10 or more of these drugs running through your system, I don’t think they can predict what the hell it’s doing to you.
My dad takes statins, as well as about 10-15 other drugs, I’m convinced it’s affecting his memory, among other things.
Your best bet is to stay lean and physically fit as you age, eat as many healthy foods as you can and avoid taking more 2-3 drugs, it may be better to take your chances than to put another drug into your system.
From way back in October 2011...
Could Vitamins Decrease Your Life Expectancy?
If you want to live longer, popping a vitamin may not help
Christen Brownlee
Americans sure do love their vitamins and supplements. Every year, we spend a whopping $20 billion on them. But if you think all that cash is going to buy you a longer life, think again. A new study in this week’s Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that some supplements may actually shorten your life.
In the study, researchers used information from 40 thousand women who filled in questionnaires several times over the last 22 years. They answered questions about all sorts of health issues, including supplement use.
Matching this data to records from the state health registry and the National Death Index, the researchers identified seven supplements that actually seemed to be hastening death. Those include vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc, copper, and even your innocent-looking multivitamin.
Some of them only slightly increased the risk of death during the study period. For example, multivitamins nudged it up by 2.2 percent. However, others were more substantial; copper, for example, increased the risk of death by about 18 percent.
If It Isn’t Broken...
These results apply to both women and men, says study leader Jaako Mursu, Ph.D. of the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Minnesota, Lots of previous supplement use studies that included men have shown the same thing: If you don’t have a documented nutritional deficiency, taking extra vitamins and minerals doesn’t seem to help, and it may even harm.
Anything—even water—can be hazardous in huge quantities, says adds Mursu, Supplements usually contain megadoses of many vitamins and minerals that you’d never find in food. Also, food usually contains vitamins and minerals in vastly different forms and combinations than those found in supplements—all potential reasons popping a pill for your nutrients might not be the best plan.
“Usually, what we advise is to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and whole grains,” Mursu says. Whole foods, such as vegetables, are packed with more than enough vitamins and minerals (in addition to other important components, like fiber), in combinations that appear to be far more beneficial than those in vitamin pills. Eating lots of different foods means you get the whole complement of nutrients without ever setting foot in a supplement store.
“If you’re not allergic or don’t have a specific reason, don’t exclude anything,” Mursu adds. “You can’t go wrong with the idea that if you plenty of plant food and minimize processed food, nutrient intake will be high enough for most people.”
Big-Supplement is worse. $50 billion shadowy industry peddling all sorts of dubious health claims -- and many of their products cause harm, even death. I'm not suggesting that pharma is angelic -- but at least their products are regulated and there's some measure of accountability for what they peddle.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Is that the NHANES study?
From all the items I have read, I have to disagree with those findings. For example, I’ve read estimates that something between 50-70 percent of Americans ARE deficient in magnesium. So how can they turn around and then say taking magnesium will kill you?
However, in toto, there is NO DOUBT that the biggest drug abuse problems in this country are prescription painkillers and anti-psychotics, of course adding the caveat that alcohol is number one.
If you think it would be better if there was more government regulation, you haven't been paying attention.
“From all the items I have read, I have to disagree with those findings. For example, I’ve read estimates that something between 50-70 percent of Americans ARE deficient in magnesium. So how can they turn around and then say taking magnesium will kill you?”
The findings are the findings. One may disagree with conclusions drawn but are you saying the data was falsified? If you are referring to the study I read last month, the data shows statistically significant increased mortality among those who take vitamins compared to those who don’t.
“However, in toto, there is NO DOUBT that the biggest drug abuse problems in this country are prescription painkillers and anti-psychotics, of course adding the caveat that alcohol is number one.”
Please define drug abuse problem.
There are people out abusing narcs but anti-psychotics??? They are generally prescribed for signficant mental issues and compliance is poor because of unpleasant side effects.
I’m pretty sure people have died from vitamins (Iron poisoning).
I'm saying it's BS statistical correlation. The study tracks increasing deaths of people taking supplmeents at a time when the use of supplements rose from 60% to nearly 90%.
It's like saying that the use of indoor plumbing in the early twentieth century, at a time when the entire population was adopting indoor plumbing, correlated with increasing mortality. You can do this kind of idiotic correlation with just about any trend.
“You can do this kind of idiotic correlation with just about any trend.”
Correlation does not mean causation, that bears repeating.
The results are dissonant with expected outcomes and the study was not designed specifically designed to measure the benefits of vitamins IIRC which means this one study should be taken with a rather large grain of salt. On the other hand, many important discoveries are first identified in unexpected findings like this.
gee it appears like maybe you work or have close ties to the big pharma corps...
SFL
Do you think that sophisticated compounds designed to combat complex diseases are analogous to vitamins?
What a bunch of nonsense. The next time you come down with a MRSA infection be sure to take large doses of vitamin C instead of Xyvox. Let me know how that works out for ya. If you are ever so unfortunate as to come down with chronic myelogenous leukemia, will you treat it with high doses of B complex vitamins or with Gleevec? Let me know how using riboflavin to treat that migraine works for you instead of that tryptamine based drug.
It is just plain dumb to point out a lack of deaths from vitamin consumption vs. pharmaceuticals.....I mean, really, really dumb.
Some interesting reading:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6653-high-doses-of-vitamin-e-may-hasten-death.html
http://www.cidpusa.org/vitamins.html
http://health.ninemsn.com.au/healthnews/8358337/vitamin-supplements-increase-death-risk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15238610
http://www.webmd.com/news/20070227/antioxidant-supplements-up-death-risk
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/health/29458525/detail.html
Are you aware that, unlike prescription and over-the-counter drugs, dietary supplements do not have to be proven safe or effective before they can be marketed?
They can tell you whatever they want to tell you and don't even have to include the ingredients listed or in the quantities indicated (if indicated at all). But those supplement guys aren't like big bad pharma guys now, are they? They wouldn't lie about the efficacy of their product. And I'm certain, that with them, you're getting exactly what you pay for. Riiight.
If you had even bothered reading the article, you would see that a large part of it focuses on the side effects of Prozac.
Side effects that were known for decades, but which were basically covered up until a scientist spilled the beans.
So any statements about “proven safe and effective” are mere ramblings.
As far as claims made by supplement makers, you know VERY WELL that the FDA PROHIBITS supplement makers from making medical claims. Any claims that are made are made by researchers doing long term clinical studies, or just ad hoc research, individual testimonies are automatically dumped and called anecdotal and unreliable.
You come on these threads and attack them, and sometimes the people personally.
I - me - I - didn’t make the claims about vitamins versus prescription meds, I just posted an article.
I’ve read your posts, I know you were in R&D. No doubt something in the food industry. Based on your defense of HFCS, I suspect corn growing/ processing. Is that true, Maize?
Me, I work on computers. I don’t sell vitamins or supplements. But I do read alot about them.
And I do know one thing. That MOST of the time you hear claims about vitamins/supplements, it’s a short hop, skip, and a jump over to the PUBMED database where you can READ FOR YOURSELF the clinical studies and results that support those claims.
HA HA Thats the best laugh I've had all day !!
That's funny, because I found the study on the FRONT PAGE of the website of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women: The Iowa Women's Health Study
 LESS IS MORE Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women The Iowa Women's Health Study Arch Intern Med. 2011;171(18):1625-1633. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.445 Background Although dietary supplements are commonly taken to prevent chronic disease, the long-term health consequences of many compounds are unknown. Methods We assessed the use of vitamin and mineral supplements in relation to total mortality in 38 772 older women in the Iowa Women's Health Study; mean age was 61.6 years at baseline in 1986. Supplement use was self-reported in 1986, 1997, and 2004. Through December 31, 2008, a total of 15 594 deaths (40.2%) were identified through the State Health Registry of Iowa and the National Death Index. Results In multivariable adjusted proportional hazards regression models, the use of multivitamins (hazard ratio, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.02-1.10; absolute risk increase, 2.4%), vitamin B6 (1.10; 1.01-1.21; 4.1%), folic acid (1.15; 1.00-1.32; 5.9%), iron (1.10; 1.03-1.17; 3.9%), magnesium (1.08; 1.01-1.15; 3.6%), zinc (1.08; 1.01-1.15; 3.0%), and copper (1.45; 1.20-1.75; 18.0%) were associated with increased risk of total mortality when compared with corresponding nonuse. Use of calcium was inversely related (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.88-0.94; absolute risk reduction, 3.8%). Findings for iron and calcium were replicated in separate, shorter-term analyses (10-year, 6-year, and 4-year follow-up), each with approximately 15% of the original participants having died, starting in 1986, 1997, and 2004. Conclusions In older women, several commonly used dietary vitamin and mineral supplements may be associated with increased total mortality risk; this association is strongest with supplemental iron. In contrast to the findings of many studies, calcium is associated with decreased risk.
Vitamin and Mineral Supplement Use in Relation to All-Cause Mortality in the Iowa Women's Health Study: Comment on "Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women" Vitamin Supplements: More Cost Than Value: Comment on "Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women"
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES For Vitamin and Mineral Supplementation, Less Is More Dietary Supplement Use and Mortality in Older Women Vitamin and Mineral Supplement Use in Relation to All-Cause Mortality in the Iowa Women's Health Study: Comment on "Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women" The Importance of Food
RAPID RESPONSES TO THIS ARTICLE Supplement-related Mortality? Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women
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Now let me make it clear I am not denying that this particular study exists or was published.
Three times - THREE TIMES - over the span of 25+ years, these people “self reported” on supplement use.
I would say it merits further study.
But I would ALSO SAY there is no reasonable way they could come to the conclusions they did based on the methodology.
How many aspirin did you take last year? Should I conclude if you took at least one, that aspirin saved your life?
What you have is is very, very sparse and incomplete data.
I don't disagree. I'm actually not against the use of supplements or vitamins. But I think consumers need to be very very careful -- and the best data collected so far shows that daily multivitamin use has no benefit -- and may actually shorten your life.
But I would ALSO SAY there is no reasonable way they could come to the conclusions they did based on the methodology.
We disagree - and so do the folks who reviewed it before publication in a highly-respected peer reviewed journal.
How many aspirin did you take last year? Should I conclude if you took at least one, that aspirin saved your life?
You're right -- looking at one person's vitamin use isn't super helpful. The study looked at 38,772 women and controlled for all sorts of variables. Over a population that large, you most certainly can see the health effects of aspirin use, vitamin use, etc.
The supplement industry is huge -- this article says $20 billion, other sources say $50 billion. It's incredible to me how little serious research these guys support. If their products are really valuable, why wouldn't they prove it?
As I said earlier, supplement makers/vendors are PROHIBITED by the FDA from making medical claims.
The claims you hear of are made by researchers and clinicians doing studies.
I reject the findings of the study as I said asking people only three times in 25 years does NOT give you enough data to come to the conclusion they did no matter how many participants there are.
I agree people need to be careful - and one thing I will point out is that their mentioning of Iron, well, elevated Iron has been known for a LONG time to have possible negative effects. To paint the whole supplement industry in a negative tone based on that is more propaganda than science.
Yeah, great. Let's look at the title again - 27 Years - No Deaths from Vitamins, 3 Million from Prescription Drugs.
Now employ some common sense and tell me what that title means. I'll tell you: The title is communicating the belief that sophisticated compounds designed to combat complex diseases are analogous in some way to vitamins. That is stupid, stupid, stupid.
I don't care about Prozac or any alleged cover up of any side effects. That is simply a distraction from the fact that this title was meant to communicate that supplements are under siege while big bad pharmaceutical kills millions.
So any statements about “proven safe and effective” are mere ramblings.
It's apparent that you have no idea the process a NME must go through to be commercialized. That doesn't surprise me. You also don't understand the difference between a clinical trial involving thousands of subjects and a full scale product launch involving millions. Human physiology being what it is, it shouldn't come as a surprise that negative side effects occur. All medicines come with risks and benefits. Are you also an anti-vaccine crusader because one person in a million has a bad reaction to the drug?
As far as claims made by supplement makers, you know VERY WELL that the FDA PROHIBITS supplement makers from making medical claims. Any claims that are made are made by researchers doing long term clinical studies, or just ad hoc research, individual testimonies are automatically dumped and called anecdotal and unreliable.
LOL! This is what happens when your knowledge of a subject is limited to a text book or some magazine. That may sound good to you in theory, but I assure you it is very different in practice. A dietary supplement must be proven unsafe before it is removed from store shelves. Dietary supplement manufacturers can introduce new products without providing the Food and Drug Administration with any testing for safety or efficacy. They don't even have to put safety warnings on the labels even if it's a product with known serious hazards or possible drug interactions. But you think any claims must be backed up by research and long term clinical studies, right? I guess you missed the whole ephedra problem.
Maybe you also missed all those supplements laced with sibutramine and sildenafil. Not good. Then there was Boyd Haley, who was selling an industrial chelator as a dietary supplement to treat autistic children. He must have missed the FDA rule prohibiting supplement makers from making medical claims. You should look up a company called Xano and the mangosteen juice they were hawking. They claimed that studies showed their juice was “anti-tumor,” “anti-obesity,” “anti-aging,” “anti-fatigue,” “antiviral,” “antibiotic” and “antidepressant.” They wouldn't say it if it wasn't true, right? I mean, the FDA says that's prohibited.
Then there's CVS who paid millions to settle with the FTC over claims made about their AirShield 'Immune Boosting' supplement. Did you see where Airborne had to pay tens of millions because they falsely advertised their "Miracle Cold Buster." And what about that product called "Cold Away?" Who knew a combination of Chinese herbs could cure your cold? How about that Harvard professor who teamed up with Shaklee to promote their Vivix Cellular Anti-Aging Tonic that he publicly claimed offered life-extending properties? He left the company when the media called Shaklee out over this arrangement. Let's not even bother with all the claims made directly, or through surrogates, about ginko biloba (dementia and Alzheimer's) or with anti-oxidants (cancer). Now I see where hormones like DHEA and melatonin are being hawked as supplements. That's as nutty as the title of the article you posted.
Yes, the FDA says that food supplement labels cannot claim to cure or prevent disease. But that doesn't stop manufacturers from doing exactly that. Food supplement manufacturers regularly make medicinal claims that are difficult to verify.
You come on these threads and attack them, and sometimes the people personally.
You posted an article with an absurd title. I have to assume that you agree with the title since you posted it and defend your understanding of the subject. If calling that "dumb" offends you then so be it. Don't post dumb articles in the future.
I’ve read your posts, I know you were in R&D. No doubt something in the food industry. Based on your defense of HFCS
I don't defend HFCS. I don't even like the product. I'd much rather they used sucrose to sweeten my beverages. What I do defend is sound science. There is a lot of junk science promoted on this forum, and when it is promoted as something other than what it is, I point it out.
I suspect corn growing/ processing. Is that true, Maize?
Maize? Did you think that up all by yourself? I have nothing to do with corn growing or processing. Being the chemicalphobe that you are, do you also fear corn and corn processing? People fear the things they don't understand.
Me, I work on computers
Good for you. You should stay there. You'd go hungry trying to make a living in anything requiring a knowledge of food science.
But I do read alot about them.
You should add basic chemistry, biology and nutrition to your reading list.
That MOST of the time you hear claims about vitamins/supplements, it’s a short hop, skip, and a jump over to the PUBMED database where you can READ FOR YOURSELF the clinical studies and results that support those claims.
I suppose that would depend on the claims now, wouldn't it? That's the thing about research today....there is so much of it you can find research to support just about any ridiculous claim you want to make. That's where separating fact from fiction becomes a little more challenging. Don't believe everything you read....you'll end up posting silly articles that attempt to equate highly sophisticated chemical compounds with vitamin C.
I just gave you some hits from a quick Bing search. The USPTF tries to give doctors recommendations based on the most up to date research, they are hated by some, but I think they are fairly reliable. Here is there most up to date recommendations on vitamins supplementation, I link it for the references listed at the bottom. If your doctor advises you against taking supplements, it is probably based on the recommendations of this group.
www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/.../vitamins/vitaminsrr.pdf
I scanned the articles. There is some repetition but some of them referred to other older research so the weren’t identical. I was at work when responding to you. I’m now up at 0:00 dark thirty going to a wrestling match with my boy.
I am not anti supplements. I have a pile of vitamin research I collected in the 80’s somewhere in the basement. I put them together when we were preparing to publish an article about using Vitamin C before surgery to decrease post surgical blood loss for prostate procedures. The numbers were impressive, there was significant improvement in both biologic markers and medical outcomes. Unfortunately, one of the surgeons did not have his participants sign consents for the study, I recommended we start over and redesign the study to resolve a couple of flaws in the original study and have all the participants sign informed consents, the surgical group did not stay together and the whole thing fell into my to do list and thirty years later it is still not done.
In case any young urologist who needs to get published is reading: Draw a vitamin C and HGB/HCT level prior to TURP, randomly give half a gram of vitamin C twice over the 24 hours prior to surgery and give the other half a placebo then follow HGB/HCT after surgery. You can thank me later.
I’ll get back to you on this one. Winter is icumin in, we’ve had mostly dark and stormy nights lately, and tomorrow it miraculously gets dark an hour earlier. I’ll have more time to fritter away on the internet.
Bump!!!
I can't post the study itself. It's not public domain. However, with the citation I gave you, you can go to any university or even decent public library and read the study yourself.
You will need to go to the library to get the full articles.
+1.
Interesting video. Thanks.
The guy is obviously a quack. After all, everybody knows that no lowly vitamin could possibly give results that are as good as highly sophisticated chemical compounds!!
/Sarc
OK. Let me start this way.
I know biology is a complex subject.
I know medicine/therapies is also a complex subject.
I don’t come here and post these articles to take or advocate an extreme position in either side.
The vid was a breath of fresh air. There seems to be neither an overt hostility to Vitamin D as a preventative, nor is their overriding hype/promises about Vitamin D as a therapy.
It seems that more often than not, people are in one camp or the other when it comes to treatments/ideas, either by-the-book med school approaches or looney-tunes take-off all our clothes and eat dirt naturalist approaches.
I personally am at neither end of that spectrum. I admit to taking a fair number of supplements but that is because study after study, when you put them all together, show that there is NO “balanced diet” that could give you enough of all you need unless you were willing to eat 15,000 calories a day!
So I sit here with a few bottles of Vit C, D, and E next to me oftentimes reading abstracts and reviews. It should be obvious that I know how to read them when I pointed out about that 3 data points over 25) years IS NOT sufficient to conclude what they did. And REGARDLESS OF WHAT MORONS SUGGEST I READ/DON’T READ, they don’t EVEN HAVE A CLUE that next to my bottles of vitamins near my couch is an unabridged copy of Gray’s Anatomy, 1974 edition. And we ain’t talkin some dumb TV show! Regardless of what some horses posterior thinks or knows what I read!!
Do I believe the title of the article? Zero deaths from vitamins?
I’m not sure. Deaths from vitamins/supplements are very hard to track and verify. I have never heard of a death from Vit C, Vit B, any of the water-soluble Vitamins. I have heard of complications from Vit A and Vitamin D, which usually stop as soon as the overdosing stops.
And all the problems with A and D have been accidental, not intentional. The two incidents that stand out most in my mind are the thalidomide problems of years ago and the withdrawal of tryptophan from the shelves (and that was shown to be contamination, not anything related to tryptophan itself).
Three million deaths from prescriptions over 27 years? This may be a number that is a bit overblown. We might want to grant someone the shadow of a doubt and agree that the number is lower, but HOW MUCH lower? Half that number? One million? We might even want to be extremely generous and drop that figure (remember, we’re doing this in our minds and ignoring published studies that show 3 million) down to 500,000.
That’s still way, way, way beyond any number we can come up with for vitamins.
Do I think that no matter what the malady, there is something “natural” to cure it? Of course not, that’s just plain silly.
Do I believe that there are some diseases that might respond to natural treatments far better than current accepted practices?
You bet I do!
Look at statins.
One of the most highly prescribed medications in the world.
It’s red yeast rice, that’s what it is. Red yeast rice.
Like it or lump it, the statins are analogs (engineered chemicals) based on the foundational chemicals found in red yeast rice.
I am concerned that the large pharma institutes and the FDA are trying to adapt the European Codex model where you
can no longer buy simple vitamins/supplements OTC.
Especially when every advertisement you see on the television for prescription drugs of all flavors and colors comes with a laundry list of side effects as long as your arm. (I saw one the other day that actually said DEATH could be a side effect!) I guess if you die the doctor will just take you off that particular prescription...
I appreciate reasoned, researched, logical discussions about the issues. I pretty much stop reading when I hear off the wall statements like “I don’t care about Prozac or any alleged cover up of any side effects”... straight from the horses behind, I guess...
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