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A new study published February 28, 2007 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) contends vitamins are dangerous and even cause death. Is this really so? Not to the experienced researcher who knows the scientific literature and doesn’t have a bias against non-drug treatments or a hidden agenda.

The authors used what has been called a ‘gold standard’ for studies, that is meta-analysis (pooling of studies) to get larger numbers to presumably give better statistical significance and a better understanding of results. But, not if you have an agenda and are looking to smear a competitors product, a la a political candidate. This is marketing 101 for politicians. Now why on earth would so-called scientists try to smear vitamins? What have these innocent inexpensive safe and effective nutrients done to them for this action to be taken?

Well they would save the U.S. economy (read losses for Big Pharma, Major News Media and Medical Establishment) $58 billion dollars per year if everyone took 1 multivitamin per day alone. This is according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) State-of-the-Science Conference on Multivitamin/Mineral Supplements and Chronic Disease Prevention. May 15–17, 2006.

So Scientists, ‘Show Me The Science’!

Here in a nutshell is what these Danish Scientists (if I may use that term loosely) did in the JAMA study.

They selected 68 out of 815 clinical trials with 232,606 patients and pooled then to form a large-scale study to look into the benefits of vitamins. They concluded that when the antioxidant supplements were taken separately, beta carotene increased death rates by 7 per cent, vitamin A by 16 per cent, and vitamin E by 4 per cent.

The Major News Media were all over this with headlines like – Vitamins Kill! And surprise, surprise the authors suggested – “that money spent on vitamin supplements is wasted.” Gee, I’ve heard that one before; they should have added that with the money saved on vitamins and your nutritionally deficient body in need of repair, that you’d have more money left over to buy expensive prescription drugs.

So what they did really was compare apples to oranges. Or another analogy would be that they compared — hockey to basketball to baseball to football and concluded that exercise is dangerous for your health. Common sense says that exercise is good for you, and so are vitamins. Walking down the street is dangerous for goodness sake. These authors strain credulity. But is it science? I’d have to say ‘There is something rotten in Denmark!’

Scaremongering and Medicine

Let’s look at the methodology of the authors, from an article by Ed Edelson of HealthDay who reported that the JAMA study “drew quick criticism from one independent expert.”
“One of the major premises of doing such a meta-analysis is that the studies should be comparable,” said Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston. “Here, they looked at primary prevention, treatment, old people, young people, smokers, nonsmokers. Only when they used their own criteria of what was good and what was bad were they able to show an increase in all-cause mortality.”

“You don’t see people dropping dead right and left from overdoses of antioxidant supplements,” Blumberg said. “It is just not happening. You have to explain to me how some essential nutrients kill you in a couple of years.”

Antioxidant supplements “have been shown in a number of studies to have no adverse effects,” Blumberg said. “They are not toxic, but evidence that they prevent heart disease and cancer is equivocal (susceptible of double interpretation).”

It is scaremongering to say vitamins are dangerous based on flawed data when scientists use “their own criteria” and or “body English” (as another physician put it) to achieve the outcome they wanted.

“Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics.” - Mark Twain

A similar study a few years ago by Johns Hopkins that analyzed 19 clinical trials, concluded that 400 or more international units (IU) of vitamin E per day increased the risk of dying from all causes by about four per cent. Well known physician Dr. W. Gifford Jones, a syndicated columnist was at first taken in by this research, however a vacation on a cruise-ship cleared his thinking ability and he saw the study for the flaw that it was as well. Read his account as reported at Canadafreepress.com.

Manipulation of statistics is an art form in the so-called scientific community and should be an embarrassment but some people you just can’t embarrass. The medical community sang the praises of dangerous Vioxxx and Hormones for years because they were drugs, if they had been vitamins they would have called congressional hearings to have them banned. The bias against vitamins and nutrition is evident when such flawed studies are published in medical journals.

There is always the potential risk if you overdo anything; drink too much water and you won’t feel to well, however, common sense should prevail. Enough quality studies have been done to show the benefits of vitamins and antioxidants in reducing death, hospitalizations and improvement in quality of life, to continue taking them without reservations.

To find out more about antioxidants download a copy of Dennis’ report Antioxidants: The Key To A Better Life, at his website Get A Better Life Today.

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Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Dennis will cut through all the propaganda and give you the real facts about what really works to make you healthier and happier. Visit his Blog at Better Life Blog.

The Major News Media missed reporting a breakthrough treatment for the prevention of cancer. Why? Is it because this breakthrough isn’t a drug but a simple inexpensive multivitamin with folic acid that can prevent cancers up to 50%? If it were a pharmaceutical that achieved such astounding results it would be in all the news reports on television and newspapers. Is it because there is a bias against vitamins and nutrition which are non-drug treatments or because there is no benefit for Big Pharma?

The headline in the New York Times, LA Times, etc and the sound-bite on the CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX evening news should have read:

New Major Cancer Protective Treatment – A New Breakthrough ‘Drug’ That Prevents Cancers in Children -
Unfortunately it didn’t. I Googled this study from the February 21, 2007, medical journal Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and nada! The major news outlets in Canada carried it but not in the Good Ole’ USA unless you include the Redding News.

“This is almost too simple an idea for people to take seriously, but they should take it seriously,” said Dr. Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Globe and Mail.

Vitamin Prevention Worth A Pound Of Cancer Cure

Of course the real reason this ‘breakthrough’ information wasn’t reported on in the MNM (Major News Media) was because it wasn’t a Pharmaceutical (with major advertising dollars on the line for MNM) but a simple cheap once a day multivitamin with folic acid.

“Simply taking multivitamins and folic acid during pregnancy can help a mother reduce her baby’s risk of developing the most common childhood cancers by almost 50 per cent, a new study from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children says.” Toronto Star

“The startling finding that a cheap supplement purchased at a drugstore can prevent cancer as well as a range of birth defects adds weight to the theory that micronutrients have lifelong health benefits for the developing fetus.” Globe and Mail.

Unfounded Bias Against Vitamin Supplements

Maybe the MNM didn’t pick up the story because of a bias against vitamins from so-called vitamin experts like Rory Collins, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Oxford University who was reported as saying. –

“It has been said that Americans have the richest urine in the world, because they consume a lot of expensive vitamins and then just pee them out…There is no good evidence that any vitamin supplements are effective. So if you are going to waste your money on these unproven vitamins, you may as well waste less money on the cheaper ones.” As reported in the newspaper – The Independent (London), Feb 9, 2004 by Catherine Nixey.

Or maybe - the New York Times article (April 29, 2003) conclusion that “multivitamins have not been shown to prevent any disease and that it is easy to reach high enough doses of certain vitamins and minerals to actually increase the risk of disease”

For if physicians and the news media can’t be trusted to get even the basic checkable facts right about vitamins, why should any of their opinions be taken seriously? A cursory look at the scientific medical literature reveals the false propaganda from these two sources.

Medicine Acknowledges Vitamin Supplements- the ‘Checkable Facts’

The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2002 reversed its historical anti-vitamin policy by acknowledging that “it appears prudent for all adults to take vitamin supplements”

In 1998 an Editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine was titled: “Eat Right and Take a Multivitamin.”

Harvard Public Health – “Today, though, there’s good evidence that taking a daily multivitamin makes sense for most adults…(and) may prevent heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, and other chromic diseases.”

A Summary of a few of the Positive Vitamin Studies

The Nurses’ Health Study of over 87,000 women showed that the - “Long-term use of multivitamins may substantially reduce risk for colon cancer.” Annals of Internal Medicine 1998.

A 19,000 patient study found Vitamin C lowered the “mortality (death-rate) from all-causes…” Lancet (2001)

A pooling of the data from several studies “concluded…that 1,000 IU of oral vitamin D per day is associated with a 50% reduction in colorectal cancer incidence.” Recent Results in Cancer Research (2007)

If one was to read these studies one would conclude that supplements have a role to play in prevention of disease. Of course if one was to ignore these studies and or look for negative improperly done studies one could possibly show negative results by selective research to scaremonger, which is a common tactic of Big Pharma, MNM and the Medical Establishment.

Vitamins Cost Savings to the System

Taking a multivitamin for at least 11 years would save the system $58.1 billion as reported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) State-of-the-Science Conference on Multivitamin/Mineral Supplements and Chronic Disease Prevention. May 15–17, 2006. So there’s the crux of the matter, savings of billions of dollars to the system which would normally be shared by the Medical Establishment, Big Pharma and the Major News Media. With a close to 50% prevention for some cancers, an inexpensive multivitamin doesn’t have enough profit to go around. Now you know why the ‘Sounds of Silence Were Deafening for the Cancer Cure.’

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Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Dennis will cut through all the propaganda and give you the real facts about what really works to make you healthier and happier. Visit his website Get A Better Life Today.