Posted on 04/15/2008 8:34:19 PM PDT by blam
Vitamin pills 'increase risk of early death'
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 16/04/2008
Popular vitamin supplements taken by millions of people in the hope of improving their health may do no good and could increase the risk of a premature death, researchers report today.
They warn healthy people who take antioxidant supplements, including vitamins A and E, to try to keep diseases such as cancer at bay that they are interfering with their natural body defences and may be increasing their risk of an early death by up to 16 per cent.
Antioxidants, including vitamins A, E, and C are said to mop up free radicals, which cause disease
Researchers at Copenhagen University carried out a review of 67 studies on 230,000 healthy people and found "no convincing evidence" that any of the antioxidants helped to prolong life expectancy. But some "increased mortality".
About 12 million Britons supplement their diets with vitamins and the industry is worth £330 million. But little research has been done on the long-term health implications.
The Department of Health said yesterday that people should try to get the vitamins they need by eating a balanced diet and advised care in taking large doses of supplements.
A spokesman said: "There is a need to exercise caution in the use of high doses of purified supplements of vitamins, including antioxidant vitamins, and minerals. Their impact on long-term health may not have been fully established and they cannot be assumed to be without risk.
"Anyone concerned about their diet should speak to their doctor or dietitian."
Antioxidants, including vitamins A, E, C and beta-carotene and selenium, are said to mop up compounds, called free radicals, which cause disease. It is this action that researchers believe may cause problems with the defence system.
The Danish research, released by the influential Cochrane Library, applied only to synthetic supplements and not to vitamins that occur naturally in vegetables and fruit.
It found that vitamin A supplements increased the risk of death in healthy people by 16 per cent. Taking beta-carotene was linked to a 7 per cent increased risk, while regular users of vitamin E supplements increased the risk of an early death by four per cent.
Although the review found no significant detrimental effect caused by vitamin C, it found no evidence that it helped ward off disease. Millions take it in the hope of avoiding a common cold.
Goran Bjelakovic, who led the review, said: "We could find no evidence to support taking antioxidant supplements to reduce the risk of dying earlier in healthy people or patients with various diseases.
"If anything, people in trial groups given the antioxidants beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E showed increased rates of mortality."
But Patrick Holford, a nutritionist who has formulated supplements for the company Biocare, said: "Antioxidants are not meant to be magic bullets and should not be expected to undo a lifetime of unhealthy habits.
"When used properly, in combination with a healthy diet full of fruit and vegetables, getting plenty of exercise and not smoking, antioxidant supplements can play an important role in maintaining and promoting overall health."
A spokesman for the Health Supplements Information Service said: "People should get all the vitamins and minerals they need from their diet, but for the millions who are not able to do that, vitamins can be a useful supplement and they should not stop taking them."
However, Catherine Collins, of the British Dietetic Association, said: "This study is deeply worrying and shows that there should be more regulation for vitamins and minerals.
"The public can buy vitamins as easily as sweets. They should be treated in the same way as paracetamol with maximum limits on the dosage."
So maybe it’s not.
Pretty sick if not.
Should me the post # where I said any of that. You can't. You just made up pure fiction.
Like Jean Cauvin himself...
Looks like God's will to me
Of course it does. But once again, you take one verse and twist it to support a bogus theology, ignoring the hundreds of verses where Jesus healed people, ignoring that Jesus said part of His mission was to heal the sick. So why on earth would God's perfect will be for some of those to be sick? Jesus said it best:
And knowing their thoughts he said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: Mat 12:25
It is kooky to think that God made this man sick so Jesus could heal Him, like some cheap stage show magician, setting up a phony in the crowd.
could you please inform me of just what this "bogus theology" is?
More irrational, faulty logical thinking. "If AU defends a specific point made by poster X, then that means they support all of poster X's points." You guys need to go to thinking school. It would really help!
So according to Jesus, why are some people born with defects?
So once again, you don't seem to "read with precision" and then get into trouble. The only thing Jesus said for certain was that it WAS NOT because of the sins of the parents. Jesus DID say it so God's glory could be manifest. More faulty logical thinking would make the flawed conclusion that this was God's perfect will, rather than something that God allowed. There is a difference.
okay, God does things against His will, that’s a new one on me
With God, of course there is.
But not with that cruel caricature of a god devised by Cauvin in his own egotistical image.
Huh?! I have no idea what point you are trying you make...
Oh my.
and so herein we have the crux of the issue. I have to go wash my dog or something, see you
And just where was that said?
Why are they BORN that way?
First, there are defects, and there are defects, and some would argue that we are enhanced by our limitations.
In my opinion, we are here to do the will of God. If we are born with ‘defects’, then God has his reason. My son is a type 1 diabetic. The other has lethal allergies to food. We thought he was autistic, but turns out he was just ADD, and is doing much better.
I don’t know God’s plan. I ask Him to give me the courage to carry out my role in that plan, even if I’m not fit to understand it. My children will fulfill God’s will - they may be fulfilling it as we speak.
Jesus might tell you that the hand can’t be a foot, and the eye can’t be an ear, but we are each fearfully and wonderfully made. He knows each of us from before we were born. I can’t speak for him, however. He speaks for Himself. We are born with putative ‘strengths’ and ‘weaknesses’. How often has one’s strengths so consumed us that God does not come into the picture?
There’s a milloin stories of maimed children reaching powerful people. Curt Marsh, standout lineman for the Raiders in their glory years (has two super bowl rings), had so badly injured his leg that it had to be amputated.
Wallowing in pity in his room, a lifetime standout athlete now without his leg, he had heard some sort of wheezing sound coming from the hall. He wheels himself out to the nurses station to find a boy, burns over 40 percent of his body, speaking to his dad on the phone, not able to speak, but laughing at his dad’s jokes.
In that moment, Curt snapped out of it and realize that if this boy, maimed as he was, could find it in himself to laugh, then Curt could make something of his life without his leg. I can’t tell you how many people Curt Marsh has brought to God since then. He can snap your neck like a twig, but he’s the most gentle person you’ll ever have the pleasure of meeting.
Did the boy complete his mission? Was he aware of the plan? Did he have to be?
I believe that boy was an instrument of God, and through him many people have come to find Jesus.
I pray that I’ve carried mine out, that I didn’t botch it somehow.
1000S: Looks like God's will to me
AU: It is kooky to think that God made this man sick so Jesus could heal Him, like some cheap stage show magician, setting up a phony in the crowd.
It may seem "kooky" to you, but you've been given the clear words of Scripture and you ridicule them.
Your argument isn't with us. It's with God.
None of us gets out of life unscathed.
But we are strengthened knowing the truth of Romans 8:28...
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."
The alternative is for us to think we go through life either as victims of chance and happenstance, or objects of an indifferent and impotent god. That way of living doesn't display a strong trust in God.
I think from your posts you display an unhealthy preoccupation with demonic possession.
Amen. Well-put.
Did God "declare the end from the beginning?" Do you understand what that means? What do you think that means?
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