NYtimes article on Vitamins

[tom30]

I found this interesting I cautious on supplements to begin with just an FYI as it's not specific to any bone marrow conditions...

Don’t Take Your Vitamins
By PAUL A. OFFIT

PHILADELPHIA — LAST month, Katy Perry shared her secret to good health with her 37 million followers on Twitter. “I’m all about that supplement & vitamin LYFE!” the pop star wrote, posting a snapshot of herself holding up three large bags of pills. There is one disturbing fact about vitamins, however, that Katy didn’t mention.

Derived from “vita,” meaning life in Latin, vitamins are necessary to convert food into energy. When people don’t get enough vitamins, they suffer diseases like scurvy and rickets. The question isn’t whether people need vitamins. They do. The questions are how much do they need, and do they get enough in foods?

Nutrition experts argue that people need only the recommended daily allowance — the amount of vitamins found in a routine diet. Vitamin manufacturers argue that a regular diet doesn’t contain enough vitamins, and that more is better. Most people assume that, at the very least, excess vitamins can’t do any harm. It turns out, however, that scientists have known for years that large quantities of supplemental vitamins can be quite harmful indeed.

In a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1994, 29,000 Finnish men, all smokers, had been given daily vitamin E, beta carotene, both or a placebo. The study found that those who had taken beta carotene for five to eight years were more likely to die from lung cancer or heart disease.

Two years later the same journal published another study on vitamin supplements. In it, 18,000 people who were at an increased risk of lung cancer because of asbestos exposure or smoking received a combination of vitamin A and beta carotene, or a placebo. Investigators stopped the study when they found that the risk of death from lung cancer for those who took the vitamins was 46 percent higher.

Then, in 2004, a review of 14 randomized trials for the Cochrane Database found that the supplemental vitamins A, C, E and beta carotene, and a mineral, selenium, taken to prevent intestinal cancers, actually increased mortality.

Another review, published in 2005 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that in 19 trials of nearly 136,000 people, supplemental vitamin E increased mortality. Also that year, a study of people with vascular disease or diabetes found that vitamin E increased the risk of heart failure. And in 2011, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association tied vitamin E supplements to an increased risk of prostate cancer.

Finally, last year, a Cochrane review found that “beta carotene and vitamin E seem to increase mortality, and so may higher doses of vitamin A.”

What explains this connection between supplemental vitamins and increased rates of cancer and mortality? The key word is antioxidants.

Antioxidation vs. oxidation has been billed as a contest between good and evil. It takes place in cellular organelles called mitochondria, where the body converts food to energy — a process that requires oxygen (oxidation). One consequence of oxidation is the generation of atomic scavengers called free radicals (evil). Free radicals can damage DNA, cell membranes and the lining of arteries; not surprisingly, they’ve been linked to aging, cancer and heart disease.

To neutralize free radicals, the body makes antioxidants (good). Antioxidants can also be found in fruits and vegetables, specifically in selenium, beta carotene and vitamins A, C and E. Some studies have shown that people who eat more fruits and vegetables have a lower incidence of cancer and heart disease and live longer. The logic is obvious. If fruits and vegetables contain antioxidants, and people who eat fruits and vegetables are healthier, then people who take supplemental antioxidants should also be healthier. It hasn’t worked out that way.

The likely explanation is that free radicals aren’t as evil as advertised. (In fact, people need them to kill bacteria and eliminate new cancer cells.) And when people take large doses of antioxidants in the form of supplemental vitamins, the balance between free radical production and destruction might tip too much in one direction, causing an unnatural state where the immune system is less able to kill harmful invaders. Researchers call this the antioxidant paradox.

Because studies of large doses of supplemental antioxidants haven’t clearly supported their use, respected organizations responsible for the public’s health do not recommend them for otherwise healthy people.

So why don’t we know about this? Why haven’t Food and Drug Administration officials made sure we are aware of the dangers? The answer is, they can’t.

In December 1972, concerned that people were consuming larger and larger quantities of vitamins, the F.D.A. announced a plan to regulate vitamin supplements containing more than 150 percent of the recommended daily allowance. Vitamin makers would now have to prove that these “megavitamins” were safe before selling them. Not surprisingly, the vitamin industry saw this as a threat, and set out to destroy the bill. In the end, it did far more than that.

Industry executives recruited William Proxmire, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, to introduce a bill preventing the F.D.A. from regulating megavitamins. On Aug. 14, 1974, the hearing began.

Speaking in support of F.D.A. regulation was Marsha Cohen, a lawyer with the Consumers Union. Setting eight cantaloupes in front of her, she said, “You would need to eat eight cantaloupes — a good source of vitamin C — to take in barely 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C. But just these two little pills, easy to swallow, contain the same amount.” She warned that if the legislation passed, “one tablet would contain as much vitamin C as all of these cantaloupes, or even twice, thrice or 20 times that amount. And there would be no protective satiety level.” Ms. Cohen was pointing out the industry’s Achilles’ heel: ingesting large quantities of vitamins is unnatural, the opposite of what manufacturers were promoting.

A little more than a month later, Mr. Proxmire’s bill passed by a vote of 81 to 10. In 1976, it became law. Decades later, Peter Barton Hutt, chief counsel to the F.D.A., wrote that “it was the most humiliating defeat” in the agency’s history.

As a result, consumers don’t know that taking megavitamins could increase their risk of cancer and heart disease and shorten their lives; they don’t know that they have been suffering too much of a good thing for too long.

Paul A. Offit is the chief of the infectious diseases division of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the author of the forthcoming book “Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine.”

[Sally C]

Hey Tom,
The NY Times article is pretty concerning as it goes against everything one has heard about these supplements. I do know you can take too many vitamins and it can be detrimental to the liver as everything passes through it. Too many vitamins/supplements can make the liver look like it belongs to a heavy drinker.
There is always so much contradictory information about health, what foods we should eat - and then the next year these same "experts" say it will kill you. Who the heck knows what to believe!?!
As the wife of a patient at The National Institutes of Health - which I hold in very high regard - I did a search on "anti-oxident paradox" and found the article below that NIH has published about this...
Thanks for totally confusing me on this
Take care,
Sally

The antioxidant paradox: less paradoxical now?
Halliwell B.
Source
Department of Biochemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119077, Singapore. bchbh@nus.edu.sg

Abstract
The term 'antioxidant paradox' is often used to refer to the observation that oxygen radicals and other reactive oxygen species are involved in several human diseases, but giving large doses of dietary antioxidant supplements to human subjects has, in most studies, demonstrated little or no preventative or therapeutic effect. Why should this be? First, the role of reactive oxygen species in the origin and/or progression of most human diseases is unclear, although they are probably important in cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and perhaps some others. Second, the endogenous antioxidant defences in the human body are complex, interlocking and carefully regulated. The body's 'total antioxidant capacity' seems unresponsive to high doses of dietary antioxidants, so that the amount of oxidative damage to key biomolecules is rarely changed. Indeed, manipulation of endogenous antioxidant levels (e.g. by supplying weak pro-oxidants) may be a more useful approach to treatment and prevention of diseases in which reactive oxygen species are important than is consumption of large doses of dietary antioxidants.

© 2012 The Author. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology © 2012 The British Pharmacological Society.

[Chirley]

Hi, many years ago I was found to have the MTHFR gene mutation which caused hyperhomocysteinaemia. I was advised to take 5mgs of Folic Acid a day which I did for years. Then when I got my current problem and was referred to the Prof of Metabolic Medicine he was horrified that I'd been taking so much Folic Acid. He said new research showed it vastly increased the chances of getting cancer.

Now I take no supplements unless blood tests show a definite deficiency. I currently have a B 12 and Vitamin D deficiency and I take a B 12 injection and Vit D tablets.

Regards

Chirley

[Marlene]

No vitamin(s) will ever replace good nutrition. So many people want to continue with bad habits and pop a pill or vitamin to offset the damage. I am getting pretty discourage with all the "scientific studies" that either tout or discourage the use of vitamins. So much is not disclosed about how the study was designed, the overall health of the people, lifestyle, etc. Too many variables to make such broad claims. And too many agendas depending on who's funding the study. It's very misleading and confusing to the public and doctors too.

Nutrition and health cannot be reduced to just one thing that will fix you. The problem is that doctors are not trained to look at nutrition as an underlying cause of many problems people have. And, insurance companies won't pay for many of the more conclusive testing/assessments.

That being said, John's healing has been greatly helped through the use of nutritional supplements. But we also eat a very well and I've spent many hours researching them. I do feel that many people have nutritional imbalances but it's not easy to figure it out until it can be detected in the blood. Usually by that time, it's been going on for a while.

Chirley....methylated folate does not need to be converted and is the type you would need and not the folic acid like you said. Unfortunately, so many foods are fortified with it. Too much unconverted folic acid can fuel the growth of cancer cells. Your folate needs to come from vegetables or a methylated form of folate. Methylated forms of folate are now available. Hopefully your B12 is also the active/methly form. B6, B12 and Folate all come in a usable, bio active form and is my preferred form even though I don't think I have the MTHFR mutation.

[Lulu]

Paul Offit works for the pharmaceutical industry - just google him. Most of the studies he quotes were discredited years ago as they used synthetic versions of vitamins, and in doses/combinations no nutritional therapist would advise. Not saying all vitamins are safe, just that this is the same old rehashed story the pharm companies PR departments wheel out time after time. Do not trust their spin.

[Sally C]

Lulu,
I tend to agree with you. I also agree that who is funding a study and whether or not they have an agenda is an important factor. I asked the pharmacist at my Compounding Pharmacy - who I trust implicitly - about all this yesterday. He is a firm believer in natural supplements. His only concern was making sure of the quality of the supplements that are taken.
Take care,
Sally