Really?????? Here's my shocked face:
So just who is going to take a bottle of Tylenol??????
Sheesh!
Posted on 06/20/2015 11:07:42 AM PDT by rickmichaels
More than half the Canadian population regularly uses vitamins and minerals in order to stay healthy, according to Health Canada. Yet most are likely not aware that high doses of many common vitamins can increase the risk of cancer or death.
“Vitamins have become synonymous with health, but there’s this false idea that, if a little bit is good, a lot has to be better,” says Dr. Tim Byers, associate dean at the Colorado School of Public Health. Byers challenged this idea recently at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting. “We now have direct evidence that a lot is not better. In fact, a lot is worse and can create health problems,” he said.
There is no doubt the body needs a minimum amount of vitamins to function normally. Deficiencies in vitamin C can lead to scurvy, and inadequate vitamin D can cause the bony deformities of rickets in children, though these diseases are rarely seen in Western countries nowadays, thanks largely to widespread improvements in nutrition.
There are some valid clinical uses for vitamin therapy, such as folic acid given in pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects, or vitamin K given prophylactically to prevent hemorrhagic disease in newborns. Vitamin B12 is the treatment for patients with pernicious anemia, and iron supplements are often given to patients with iron deficiency.
But most people who take vitamins don’t have any of these medical problems. In fact, most of them are completely healthy and take vitamins not to treat sickness, but to prevent it. So the first question Byers asked himself when he set out to review 30 years’ worth of research conducted on vitamins and cancer was: Can vitamins actually prevent disease? He presented his findings at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting.
The 1996 Physicians’ Health Study, he pointed out, found there’s no evidence to show that beta-carotene (the dietary form of vitamin A) prevents cancer. In 2009, the Physicians’ Health Study II found that vitamin C and vitamin E had no protective effect, either. The examination of a number of trials, specifically, in women, again showed no benefit for tens of thousands of patients over 10 years. Study after study showed that vitamins C, D and E did not lower the risk of cancer.
But hidden in the mass of data that Byers presented at the conference are worrying signs that vitamins might actually increase people’s cancer risk. Two other large randomized trials found that high doses of beta-carotene increased the risk of lung cancer in both male and female smokers. Another trial that studied 35,000 men in Canada and the U.S. found a link between high doses of vitamin E and prostate cancer in men.
Moreover, the findings from these various studies were reviewed by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international group of researchers, who, after analyzing the data, found no evidence to support the use of vitamin therapy, and corroborated that there seemed to be an increased risk of dying with beta-carotene and vitamin E supplements. That position was later echoed by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
“After so many trials and so many studies, I think we can be very confident that these compounds are not having much benefit and are likely doing harm,” says Dr. Eliseo Guallar of Johns Hopkins University. But Guallar believes most of the risk is due to the use of supraphysiological doses, or doses above and beyond what the body actually requires.
Water-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins, will simply be filtered by the kidneys and passed in the urine, once the blood levels rise above a certain threshold. Fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamins A, D, E and K, may pose more of a problem, accumulating in the soft tissues of the body and potentially causing toxicity at higher doses.
“Most [vitamin E] supplements are 400 IU, which is 20 times what you get with diet,” Guallar explains. That is also 20 times more than you may really need. Research he conducted with other colleagues at Johns Hopkins showed that the risk with vitamin E followed a dose-response pattern, where the danger only became visible at these higher doses. In other words, people taking higher doses have a greater risk of dying.
Byers agrees that the concern with supplements is the dose. “My problem is the people taking handfuls [of vitamin supplements], or the manufacturers that are putting incredibly high doses into single pills in a completely unregulated way,” he says.
The results of these trials have been seen for diseases besides cancer, as well. In 2013, a series of articles in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that daily multivitamins did not lower people’s risk of developing heart disease or Alzheimer’s. It led Guallar and a number of other colleagues to write an editorial in the same issue titled, “Enough is enough: Stop wasting money on vitamin and mineral supplements.”
For well-nourished adults, Guallar says, vitamins are, at best, ineffective. “I wish we had a magic pill that could decrease disease,” he says, “but these vitamins are not that pill.”
I had a doctor tell me that 80-90% of pill vitamins pass out through urine, and that for the most part the industry was a scam.
Need extra iron, eat a rare steak every once in a while. Doc told me that’s why when they dropped my blood in that blue liquid it darn near cracked the bottom of the vial it sunk so fast.
Some meds MAY cause dangerously low levels of some minerals and vitamins, thus docs prescribe a daily. I would check drugs.com to see what you may be low in and reasonably eat the foods higher in those nutrients. Don’t forget the word MAY.
Apples and oranges yourself.
Tylenol is for pain relief, vitamin c is not.
Really?????? Here's my shocked face:
So just who is going to take a bottle of Tylenol??????
Sheesh!
You have heard of suicide.....? People have od’d on tylenol and all sorts of otc and prescription drugs. No poison control number on vitamin c.
My doctors (and I see MANY, and also include our pediatrician) have basically all said it is not necessary to take vitamins and so on unless something with your system might decrease what you need. In which case, a specific vitamin/mineral might be “prescribed”.
I take Vit D3 per a specified dose, by delicious chewables!
But really they say as long as you are on a reasonable diet, you should be getting the averages you need. My son takes multis because he is SOOOO damn picky and won’t eat much of anything.
drink more beer
I always love it when they write some generality about increasing our risk of dying. Our risk of dying is ultimately 100 percent.
I needed a whole more vitamin D 10,000 IU along with some iron and magnesium to feel well.
I was able to stop taking thyroid medicine which I was put on for the symptoms I had. I haven’t taken any for more then 4 years.
When I sit in the sun, I get skin cancer.
When I was fighting cancer, my oncologists said studies of Vit-D were showing promise.
So, the oncologist tested my D-levels. She found them dangerously low. She ordered high doses of prescription Vit-D for a short time until my levels were closer to normal. And then I started eating OTC D3 gummies every day.
About a year after treatment ended, though, the oncologists told me those studies of Vit-D didn’t pan out the way they’d hoped they would.
But, a little more sunshine sure wouldn’t hurt...
Eat all of the colors of vegetables and fruits and don’t take vitamins. Problem solved. It’s pretty simple.
Diet requirements are not universal, nor immutable. They are different for each person and change with locale and age. Fat is good, protein is good and even complex carbs, but carbs should not be the largest part of anyone’s caloric intake. Such advice flies in the face of reality. Obesity and diabetes became prevalent only after years of low-fat government “guidelines.”
Bacon, ham and fatty meats were a significant part of the traditional American diet before the propaganda published by the FDA and abetted by the AMA. Both of these entities have historically and consistently opposed vitamins, and yet they both endorse “vitamin-enriched” foods. Vitamin-enriched “foods” were specifically developed to market non-nutritive byproducts as food both to reduce cost and increase shelf life. Coincidentally, adding refined sugar and reducing real fat fits the same agenda. Anyone else seeing a trend here?
“All things in moderation” is a good philosophy. Eating real foods is the best diet, but even then, supplementation is beneficial as a person ages. There is nothing wrong with taking vitamins as long as you watch the fat-soluble ones. It is literally impossible to overdose on water-soluble vitamins. These propaganda pieces are just that, another way for the government to scare people and promote more harmful regulation.
You need K2 to get the D3 to the right spots.
Yet many have grown up in the hamburger from” McDonald's” for a very low price, almost daily. They are tasty. Including coca cola's ... the same thing. We most all like these items; but currently for many it is NOT in context of a a balanced diet. And many eating out establishments are too expensive to be a daily meal other than special weekly or monthly occasions.
Usually how each of us were raised is what we know, and what we do on going as well. What children experience is the foundational basis for the rest of their life.
Coupons, and advertising, and children's attractions are all the easy way to go and it becomes a BAD habit to the determent of the children and adults as well.. MM.
Too true. Raised most of my kids when we lived on a farm. They hated it, of course, but they learned how to eat well. Even my youngest (7) still eats so healthy it’s funny. She loves making smoothies and she puts in greens as well as yogurt and tropical fruit—no sugar. We have no soda or koolaide. Only water, tea and rarely milk. I don’t worry about the occasional chicken nuggets, pizza or junk food.
I did not know that. Thanks for the advice.
Really, when you are exposed to sunlight you get skin cancer?
Vitamin D is the only vitamin processed in our body with the help of the sun. Maybe you shouldn’t sit in the sun, maybe you should do work around the outside of your home or find something to do outdoors. Thus receiving other “side” benefits. Unless, of course, you suffer from the rare disease in which your skin is extremely sensitive to sunlight. Then I don’t fault you for not going out.
Those with Vit-D deficiency are far more likely to benefit from the sun than a pill.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.