Huh? Vitamins Increase Your Risk of Death?
   by James Occhiogrosso, N.D.

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Of course, the title of this article is a tongue-in-cheek joke. But the real joke is on the poor people that believe the latest “Junk Science” coming from the mainstream media and some medical sources. Recent reports about multivitamins increasing mortality, and vitamin E causing prostate cancer, have kept my phone line busy and my email inbox pretty full over the past few weeks. So, this article should serve to clear up the confusion.

The multi-media news about supplements in past few weeks has been quite interesting. First came an article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that concluded that older women that take multivitamins have increased mortality from all causes than women who don't take them. Then, not to leave out the other half of the population came another study that vitamin E causes prostate cancer in men. Note that both of these articles appeared in journals that have a long history of adverse articles concerning supplements.

Well, the ink was hardly dry on the journals before the headlines like “Your multivitamin will kill you”; “Vitamins increase risk of prostate cancer”; etc. etc. were popping up in multiple media channels. Wow! What a campaign! It should really be called the "Be Afraid! - Be Very Afraid" campaign!

Keep in mind that the people who stand to gain from this negative publicity are the pharmaceutical companies and the media outlets that get the bulk of their advertising revenue from companies that don’t want any positive publicity about supplements to surface.

So, what is a poor vitamin consumer to do? Toss all your supplements in the garbage, or, put your brain back in and do a little research on your own. If you choose the latter approach, rather than just accept multi-media scare tactics, you can read other opinions by responsible doctors and natural health providers and decide for yourself whether a particular study was well designed and is providing a realistic conclusion based on the collected data.

A little research will tell you that there are thousands of well-designed clinical studies that conclusively prove, beyond any doubt, that vitamins and minerals—whether from food or supplements—are essential and absolutely critical for good health.

While many of you are becoming more and more educated in this area, a lot of folks still get scared (which of course is the aim of these reports) into stopping the use of some important supplements.

Let us take a detailed look at the two recent studies that generated all the media hype. Were they well designed? Did they come to a reasonable conclusion?
 
The women’s multivitamin study, which ran for 22 years and ended in 2008, was based on questionnaires sent out to almost 39,000 older women (average starting age of 62) every 10 years.

These were women who “said” they were supplement users. However, the researchers kept no records of the type of supplements they were using, or if they were used on a regular basis, were of reasonable quality, and/of even had a usable amount of vitamins in them. Inexpensive multivitamin products are often of low quality and use poorly absorbable nutrients. They also kept no records of concurrently used pharmaceutical drugs, or illnesses.

Also, no tests were taken to measure nutrient levels. Thus, the study authors had no data whatsoever on actual nutrient levels, absorption, or any other reasonable data that one could use to make a determination. In essence, they decided—in advance—what they wanted the study to show, and then proceeded to assemble and manipulate data to justify their preconceived conclusion. Those who are familiar with statistics and probability know that data can easily be analyzed to show virtually any desired result. The bottom line is that—someone checking a box on a questionnaire that they use an unknown supplement, does not, in my opinion, provide any kind of real data that could be used for any responsible scientific analysis.

Two additional items that really can skew observational studies like the multivitamin study are the use of prescription drugs and the increased use of supplements after either a medical illness diagnosis or a self-perceived illness. People who are sick, or who think they are sick often try to heal themselves by taking more supplements. And obviously, if they are really ill, their mortality will be higher. These critical issues were totally ignored. So much for the “Vitamins Will Kill You Headlines!”

Next we move to the SELECT data on men and prostate cancer. Again, I find it really hard to believe that the conclusions drawn regarding prostate cancer could be valid considering that the study was designed to fail before it started. It is well known, and well documented that vitamin E is actually a family of eight fractions. It is also scientifically accepted that the most popular fraction of vitamin E—alpha-tocopherol—in synthetic form is poorly absorbed by and sometimes damaging to the human body. So how do we design a vitamin E study that will prove it has either no effect or a negative effect on prostate cancer? Simple, use only a single fraction of vitamin E, and make sure we use only a synthetic version of that fraction. Which incidentally, is exactly what was done for the SELECT study. For more detailed information about the SELECT study, see my newsletter of Nov. 3, 2008 — Preliminary SELECT study results. For more detailed information about Vitamin E, see my newsletter of Feb. 14, 2011, What You Should Know About Vitamin E.

The bottom line for health-conscious people is to realize that the misinformation coming from the multi-media is part of a coordinated campaign that is financially motivated, and run by those who stand to gain if the public stops buying supplements.

Fortunately, according to some early statistics that have crossed my desk, the public seems to be becoming more and more aware of this charade, and is beginning to ignore it.
Perhaps there will come a day when the media will accurately report serious side effects of prescription drugs when the reports are first issued, rather than waiting for thousands of people to be harmed. Until then, I prefer to do my own research and use my own judgment. Hopefully, you will too.

To read more information in major health sites about this “Junk Science” click any links below.

From The Alliance for Natural Health
· Shame on AMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine—Part One
· Shame on AMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine—Part Two
· Should I Worry about Taking Supplements?

From NaturalNews.com
· ANH exposes blatant lies in latest anti-vitamin study
· Media hoax exposed: Recent attack on vitamins a fabricated scare campaign
· Vitamins are deadly? Media hoax exposed, part two
· Mass misinformation: The real story behind Vitamin E and Prostate Cancer

From NutraIngredients-USA.com
· Multivitamins and mortality: “Seeing-what-you-want” science

You can also read any past issue of my Health Naturally newsletter by clicking the “Newsletter Archive” located at the bottom left of any page of my website.