Vitamin E Supplements
The Purest Bunk
I'm going to go out on a limb here.
Vitamin E supplements will not kill you.
Write that down. If it's ever proven to be untrue, bring it back to
me and I'll eat the paper it's written on. In fact, I'll also eat my
house and my car. Because contrary to widespread reports, vitamin E supplements will NOT kill you.
Media overboard!
Pity the mainstream media outlets. Every hour they strain to get our attention in an information environment that's become a 24-7-365 buzz of hyped up info-bites. To draw our eye amid all this chaos, they'll promote anything that's sensational, even if it's not actually sensational at all.
This is what happened last week when the Annals of Internal
Medicine released a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine meta-
analysis of vitamin E supplementation. Researchers analyzed the results of 19 studies in which vitamin E supplements played a role. Their conclusion: Doses of vitamin E in excess of 400 IU per day may slightly increase the risk of (drum roll please) death!
The media outlets immediately seized on this and sent out the sensational, detail-free message: Vitamin E supplements can kill you. Here are just three of the wildly generalized scare headlines:
"Vitamin E's Fatal Flaw"
"Vitamin E Can Be Deadly"
"Vitamin E Dosages May Be Lethal"
Run for your lives! The vitamin E sky is falling!
What a joke
I knew that HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., would have some
choice words for the Johns Hopkins results, and I was right.
Dr. Spreen: "Good Lord… what a joke. I can't believe such a
moronic study even got published."
Dr. Spreen cites a major problem with the length of the individual studies. The 19 studies represent a total of 45 years of research.
That averages to less than three years per study. "First of all,"
writes Dr. Spreen, "three years when you're talking about long-
term mortality studies means nothing. Second, the 'conclusions' certainly weren't definitively backed up by the study.
"This flies in the face of decades of research, using doses up to
2400 IU. The Shute brothers (both M.D.s) used even higher
amounts and documented excellent results. (But I guess 'old'
research somehow becomes untrue due to age or something.)"
Dr. Spreen's take on the Hopkins conclusions run parallel to a
response from the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN). A
CRN representative pointed out to NutraIngredients.com that it
was inappropriate for the researchers to draw conclusions for the entire population based on studies of subjects who were "already at grave risk with existing diseases including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and kidney failure."
Funny… I didn't hear that detail pointed out on the evening news.
Getting generalized
In short, the Hopkins conclusion is a stretch. And even the editors
of the Annals of Internal Medicine seem to agree. In a note that
accompanies the study, the editors state that, "these findings may
not be generalizable to healthy adults." And they add this
interesting detail (also missing from the evening news): "Some
trials evaluated multivitamin combinations."
In other words, some of these studies weren't even exclusive to vitamin E! And yet network news anchors had no qualms about delivering the sweeping generalization that vitamin E supplement intake may be fatal.
Which all leads to MY sweeping generalization: Vitamin E
supplements will not kill you.
But that's not to say that ANY vitamin E supplement will do. Dr.
Spreen again: "There are a few caveats to vitamin E, of course. No one should be taking the synthetic form of the nutrient (dl-alpha tocopherol) - it should be d-alpha tocopherol at least. Even better is to take 'mixed' tocopherols (alpha, beta, delta, gamma). Also, vitamin E functions better when it's mixed with selenium (neither mentioned, nor, of course, used in the study)."
Once again, we see how the major media outlets can be completely trusted to go to any lengths to grab our attention. But when it comes to accuracy and responsibility they get a failing grade.
WHICH OF YOUR LOVED ONES WILL DIE YOUNG?
Your friends and family take care of their health… see their
doctors regularly… try to eat well and exercise… believe in
the power of natural healing and take all the latest vitamins and nutritional supplements. They are trying hard to do everything right.
Yet, some will outlive others by at least 20 active years. It's not
genetics. It's not luck…
Read on… http://www.bottomlinesecrets.com/blpnet/offers/order_uc_mag.html?l=3&sk=138362&sid=A111604A1A (if you can't open here use the HTML links listed below)
To order from outside of the U.S., please visit:
www.agora-inc.com/reports/295SUCC/W2GUEB02/home.cfm
…and another thing
When does a thread have nothing to do with sewing?
When it's a thread in the HSI Forum.
Which is a little confusing. A forum discussion about a topic is
called a "thread" because in the table of contents for each topic you
can follow the thread that shows exactly who is responding to
specific comments. This is called a "threaded discussion," and
once you read one of these discussions, it makes perfect sense. But how do you find a discussion? That's a question posed by a member named Loraine, who writes:
"I want to find the 'threads' related to restless leg syndrome. How do I do this? I tried to log on with my password but was not able to find what I was looking for."
First of all, it's not necessary to use a password to access the HSI Forum. Just go to our web site (www.hsibaltimore.com), and click on "Forum" in the upper toolbar, just below the maroon banner.
When the Forum page comes up, all of the threads that have been active with new comments during the past 14 days will come up. But if you can't find a topic you're interested in, it's easy to browse through threads that haven't had recent activity.
In the toolbar in the gray banner at the top of the page, click on
"Options." When the Options page comes up, look for "Listed
Threads" in the left column. "Last 14 days" appears in the box. If you click on the arrow, you'll be able to expand the range of active threads up to 730 days.
There's a good chance that Loraine couldn't find the "Restless Leg Syndrome" thread because it may not have received a comment over the past 14 days. But by expanding the active threads range, she'll be able to find five different threads that have been devoted to restless leg syndrome over the past two years. (The Options page also contains a "keyword" feature to make the search even easier.)
If any of this sounds complicated, believe me, it's not. After one try you'll be an old hand at it. And best of all, you'll have access to a wealth of information from other HSI members who have useful tips and information to offer on a wide variety of health and nutrition topics.
To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute
Sources:
"Meta-Analysis: High-Dosage Vitamin E Supplementation May
Increase All-Cause Mortality" Annals of Internal Medicine, Vo.
142, No. 1, 1/4/05, annals.org
"Study: Vitamin E May Do More Harm Than Good" Reuters,
11/10/04, reuters.com
"CRN Pours Cold Water on New Vitamin E Research"
NutraIngredients.com, 11/10/04, nutraingredients.com
