Why You Should Not Stop Taking Your Vitamins

[SecularMotion]

Do vitamins kill people?

How many people have died from taking vitamins?

Should you stop your vitamins?

It depends. To be exact, it depends on the quality of the science, and the very nature of scientific research. It is very hard to know things exactly through science. The waste bin of science is full of fallen heroes like Premarin, Vioxx and Avandia (which alone was responsible for 47,000 excess cardiac deaths since it was introduced in 1999).

That brings us to the latest apparent casualty, vitamins. The recent media hype around vitamins is a classic case of drawing the wrong conclusions from good science.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/vitamin-dangers_b_1018430.html

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. While some may disagree, there is a difference between USP (read chemical) vitamins

and minerals, and food formed or chelated amino acid minerals. Whether or not there is enough reason to pick one over the other is a matter of opinion.

I get 180 "small" pills, two months worth, (read 3/day) for about 24 dollars. That comes out to about 25 to 30 cents/day. I can "live" with that.

ON EDIT TO ADD: the minerals in my multi are Albion Labs amino acid chelates.

[monmouth]

2. Big pharma does not want us healthy either...n/t

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Sometimes I feel as if we are "medicattle". n/t

[monmouth]

9. Good word for it "medicattle"...I like it...n/t

[tabatha]

4. Vitamins are being given to cancer patients.

In particular VitD and VitC.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. It can go way beyond that "if" there are no drug/supplement interactions, contraindications

or complications.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22001972
Pharmacol Rep. 2011 Jul;63(4):849-58.
Lipoic acid - biological activity and therapeutic potential.
Gorąca A, Huk-Kolega H, Piechota A, Kleniewska P, Ciejka E, Skibska B.
Source

Chair of Experimental and Clinical Physiology, Department of Cardiovascular Physiology, Medical University of Lodz, Mazowiecka 6/8, PL 92-215 Łódź, Poland. [e-mail].
Abstract

α-Lipoic acid (LA; 5-(1,2-dithiolan-3-yl)pentanoic acid) was originally isolated from bovine liver by Reed et al. in 1951. LA was once considered a vitamin. Subsequently, it was found that LA is not a vitamin and is synthesized by plants and animals. LA is covalently bound to the ε-amino group of lysine residues and functions as a cofactor for mitochondrial enzymes by catalyzing the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate, α-ketoglutarate and branched-chain α-keto acids. LA and its reduced form - dihydrolipoic acid (DHLA), meet all the criteria for an ideal antioxidant because they can easily quench radicals, can chelate metals, have an amphiphlic character and they do not exhibit any serious side effects. They interact with other antioxidants and can regenerate them.

For this reason, LA is called an antioxidant of antioxidants. LA has an influence on the second messenger nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) and attenuates the release of free radicals and cytotoxic cytokines. The therapeutic action of LA is based on its antioxidant properties. Current studies support its use in the ancillary treatment of many diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, autoimmune diseases, cancer and AIDS. This review was undertaken to gather the most recent information regarding the therapeutic properties of LA and its possible utility in disease treatment.

[tabatha]

11. Thanks.

Yes, I am aware that Lipoic acid is taken by a cancer patient I know.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. Lipoic acid is quite special.... sometimes supplements are given to a person receiving

chemo and radiation in order to protect the healthy tissues so there isn't as much die off of the good cells... and the side effects can be greatly mitigated as well.... some places do this, it might not be applicable to all forms of cancer and treatment however it is applied in some instances but probably not enough of them. I'm just about sure the ALA is proprietary, supplied by big pharma and costs the healthinscos hundreds of dollars per bag/bottle.

I was reading a thread just before I logged in... something about being the party of science bla bla bla... and right within the OP's first statement, there was an ad for D3... I found that to be hilarious.

[Warpy]

8. Don't forget folic acid, one of the B vitamins

Chemo is really hard on the bone marrow and folic acid protects it.

There are excellent reasons to take vitamins: specific illness, dieting, surgery, chemotherapy. It's just not necessary for healthy adults who are eating a varied, balanced diet to do so.

It's also likely not dangerous at all to take a multivitamin with the RDA.

It's just a guess, but since that study didn't differentiate between taking the once a day multi and megadosing on ultra high dosage vitamins, that the 1% increase in death rate might not be from taking a multi a day to insure getting that day's requirement but megadosing on vitamins known to be toxic in large quantities, like B-6.

[HuckleB]

10. +1

The bottom line: Most people don't need them. It's a simple thing, really. Yet, it's somehow an attack on something. I'm not sure what, to state that.

[Hydra]

6. I wondered about that "study" that came out

But the noise level is up while the facts are down...Situation Normal, AFU, probably since I was born.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. You might like to know this, or at least read this page... NO ADS btw.

http://www.doctoryourself.com/nodeaths.html

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, January 5, 2011
Zero Deaths from Vitamins, Minerals, Amino Acids or Herbs:
Poison Control Statistics Prove Supplements' Safety Yet Again

(OMNS Jan 5, 2011) There was not even one death caused by a dietary supplement in 2009, according to the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System.

The new 200-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published in the journal Clinical Toxicology, shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin.

Additionally, there were no deaths whatsoever from any amino acid, herb, or dietary mineral supplement.

Two people died from non-nutritional mineral poisoning, one from a sodium salt and one from an iron salt or iron. On page 1139, the AAPCC report specifically indicates that the iron fatality was not from a nutritional supplement. One other person is alleged to have died from an "Unknown Dietary Supplement or Homeopathic Agent." This claim remains speculative, as no verification information was provided.

60 poison centers provide coast-to-coast data for the U.S. National Poison Data System, "one of the few real-time national surveillance systems in existence, providing a model public health surveillance system for all types of exposures, public health event identification, resilience response and situational awareness tracking."

[Sarah Ibarruri]

12. The hype against vitamins comes from the Codex people, which are backed by BIG PHARMA nt