Vitamin Hoax
For everyone who's been popping vitamins (Achtung my parents and sister J) to keep them healthy and strong, Reader's Digest recently published "The Vitamin Hoax – What Not to Take" in their November 2007 issue.
To my parents and sister J, who's been popping high dosages of Vitamin A and E everyday without first consulting a doctor and only following a beauty columnist's advice on how to make your skin glow, studies show that:
Taking antioxidant vitamins increases a person's risk of dying by 16%.
High doses of Vit. E taken over 10 years slightly elevated cancer risk in smokers.
Too much Vit. A increases the risk of liver and lung cancer.
There's so much more to quote in the recent issue of Reader's Digest, and everyone should ponder about them. People should stop depending on supplements and just depend on fruits and veggies for a healthy life.
October 26th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
The study that found that antioxidant vitamins increased the risk of dying by up to 16%, was roundly criticized by Bernadine Healy, MD, former head of the National Institutes of Heath and the American Red Cross as “alarmist and silly.” The study was so badly conceived that if you took those antioxidants and happened to be run over by a car, your death from antioxidants was included in that 16%!
One of the supposed culprits was Vitamin C, but Cancer Monthly just reported on October 16, 2007, growing evidence that it fights cancer:
“Vitamin C has many roles that may be associated with fighting cancer including: acting as an anti-oxidant and scavenging free radicals, supporting the various immune cells, modulating cell growth and differentiation, helping to synthesize carnitine which is essential for the transport of fat to mitochondria, and possibly even strengthening collagen. The mounting evidence does suggest that Drs. Pauling and Cameron were right and that vitamin C is a benefit to cancer patients. We will conclude, therefore, with their words, “Vitamin C is not a miraculous cure for cancer, but…it significantly prolongs the life of the cancer patient…We believe that supplemental ascorbate can be of real help to all cancer patients and of quite dramatic benefit to a fortunate few.”