All Articles

Fruit and vegetable antioxidants could significantly reduce cancer risk

Admin

June 25,  2003

Eating sufficient fruit and vegetables to maintain antioxidant vitamin and mineral levels could reduce the risk of cancer and mortality in men, report researchers from the French health and medical institute Inserm.

An eight-year study found a 30 per cent reduction in cancers and 37 per cent reduction in mortality among men who received a daily antioxidant supplement compared to placebo. The researchers claim that the study, called SU.VI.MAX, is the first randomised trial to show that an adequate intake of vitamins and minerals from fruit and vegetables can reduce the risk of cancer.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled study tested the impact of a daily dose of antioxidants on 13000 healthy subjects. The dose included 6mg of beta-carotene, 120mg of vitamin C, 30mg of vitamin E, 100ug of selenium and 20mg of zinc. The 7886 women, aged 35 to 60 years old, and 5141 men, from 45 to 60 years old, were divided into two groups and followed up over an average of 7.5 years.

There was no difference between the two groups concerning heart disease, supporting other studies testing the effects of antioxidants on cardiovascular health, but cancer risk was reduced by 31 per cent among men. This included most cancers, especially digestive, respiratory and skin cancers.

The absence of such effects in women was not due to the different cancers they developed but rather their better state of health at baseline, explained the Inserm researchers.

Again, while risk of death was 37 per cent lower among men receiving the supplements, the same effect was not seen in women. The researchers also found a higher risk of cancer and heart disease among men with the lowest levels of beta-carotene. The lower the level of the nutrient, the higher the risk of disease. The team stressed however that the findings should support a nutritious diet with regular consumption of fruit and vegetables rather than supplements.

Use of antioxidant supplements was necessary to be able to compare to placebo, but they claim that this effect applies equally to nutrients found readily in plant foods. The results back nutrition advice to consume at least five portions of fruit and vegetables daily rather than relying on supplements, claim the researchers.

They add that the observed effect is likely weaker than would be seen from fruit and vegetables, which have additional nutrients not included in the supplement used in the study. Further, they pointed to fears that people taking supplements may eat less fruit and vegetables, calorie sources which often lead to reduction in consumption of fatty and sugary products.

Source: NutraIngredients.com

Selenium against Breast Cancer!

Admin

June 19, 2003

A combination of nutritional research and knowledge on genetics may lead to an earlier discovery and prevention of breast cancer. New scientific research seems to indicate that dietary supplements with selenium may prevent breast cancer in those women genetically predisposed to breast cancer.

A combination of nutritional research and knowledge about genes may lead to an earlier discovery and prevention of breast cancer. New research suggests that dietary supplements with selenium can prevent breast cancer in women who are genetically exposed to the disease.

The researchers believe that there is an opportunity to find out who is in the danger zone – before the disease develops – and then preventing using selenium supplements.

By: Vitality Council

Reference:
Cancer Research, 15. June 2003.

cancerres.aacrjournals.org
www.icnet.uk

Vitamin C Gives Less Pain Suffering from Arthrosis in Hip and Knee Joint

Admin

June 16, 2003

This is the conclusion of a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, cross-over multi praxis study with 133 people with X-ray verified symptomatic arthrosis in hip and knee joint.

All in all 94 knee joints and 39 hip joints were evaluated. The participants were treated with one gram of calcium ascorbate or placebo two times daily for 14 days.

A significantly better pain relief were found in the persons having arthrosis in the hip or knee joints taking calcium the ascorbate treatment than in those taking placebo.

The study was started, because many users of Vitamin C have experienced that calcium ascorbate has reduced their arthrosis pain.

Arthrosis is one of the most common reasons for disability in hips and knees. Approximately 6% of the 65 year olds Danes are suffering from arthrosis in one or two hip joints, which may lead to more than 4,000 yearly operations in total.

The pain relief effect of Vitamin C in arthrosis is explained by lessened oxidative stress as followed by the antioxidant function of the Vitamin C.

By: Per Tork Larsen, MD

Reference:
Jensen, Niels H.P. Hertz, Ugeskr Laeger 2003;165:2563-6.

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Hesitation in the Health Sector costs lives!

Claus Hancke

June 2, 2003

According to the British Medical Journal thousands of deaths in Denmark are due to the authorities not  being willing to take the available documentation on folic acid  into account.

350,000 deaths due to cardiovascular disease could have been avoided the last ten years if the British authorities had used the available knowledge about the effect of folic acid, according to the British Medical Journal who refers from a London conference (BMJ 2003; 326: 1054).

Here, Professor Godfrey Oakley said, among other things:
“By not requiring mandatory addition of folic acid to the flour, the authorities have committed a fatal health policy error.” Oakley has the support of a number of colleagues, and cardiologist David Wald recommends, for example, that you take a dietary supplement of 800 µg of folic acid a day until the authorities do something about it.

_____________________________________

By: Vitality Council.

 

References:
BMJ 2003;326:1054.
Canadian Medical Association Journal 2002;167:241-5.

bmj.bmjjournals.com
www.cmaj.ca
www.iom.dk

Inertia on folic acid has caused thousands of unnecessary deaths

Admin

May 17, 2003

As many as 350,000 deaths could have been prevented over the last decade if the UK government had acted on the compelling evidence for the benefits of folic acid, a conference was told last week. Had flour been fortified with folic acid when the evidence regarding neural tube defects was published, thousands of people would not have died from coronary heart disease.

Godfrey Oakley, visiting professor at the department of epidemiology at the Rollin School of Public Health of Emory University, Atlanta, said: “The failure to require mandatory fortification of flour with folic acid is public health malpractice.” He was speaking at a conference in London organised by Dr Jean-Pierre Lin, consultant paediatric neurologist responsible for the spina bifida services at Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospitals on behalf of the charity the Little Foundation and MacKeith meetings (a product of publishers MacKeith Press).

Recent evidence shows not only the benefits of folic acid in preventing neural tube defects but that it is protective against heart disease, strokes, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism. Folic acid lowers concentrations of homocysteine, an amino acid that for about 15 years has been believed to be associated with heart attacks and strokes.

Dr David Wald, a cardiologist at Southampton General Hospital, said: “Until public health agencies fortify our diet with sufficient folic acid, people should consider taking an 800 µg supplement each day, especially if they have coronary heart disease.”

The Medical Research Council vitamin study was published in 1991 and gave compelling evidence that taking folic acid prevents up to three quarters of neural tube defects, such as spina bifida (Lancet 1991;338:132-7). Despite the publicity that the report generated, the incidence of neural tube defects has not declined in the United Kingdom over the last decade, despite quite a steep decline between 1970 and 1992.

The government recommends that women who are trying to conceive take 400 µg of folic acid a day. But experts point out that about half of pregnancies are unplanned, meaning that many women start taking the vitamin only once they find out they are pregnant or not at all. Specialists say that the optimal time for women to take the vitamin is from stopping contraception to 12 weeks after conception.

Public health doctors and charities such as the Association of Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus have called on the UK government many times to fortify flour with folic acid. They point out that 39 countries around the world, including the United States and Canada, now either fortify flour or have agreed to do so, and that the rate of neural tube defects has fallen in these countries. In Nova Scotia, where fortification was implemented in 1998, the incidence fell from 2.58 per thousand people in 1991-7 to 1.17 per thousand people in 1998-2000 (Canadian Medical Association Journal 2002;167:241-5).

No country in the European Union, however, has yet decided to fortify flour. The folic acid working group of the European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies is soon to publish a report, concluding that most women in Europe do not take folic acid around the time of conception, despite education programmes in some countries encouraging them to do so.

The group collated data from 17 countries showing that the overall incidence of neural tube defects in Europe has not declined over the 1990s. Even women who do take folic acid often do not start until after conception. The report will recommend that EU countries adopt a policy of fortifying flour with folic acid.

If flour were fortified at the recommended level on a worldwide scale 100 000 pregnancies resulting in neural tube defect would be prevented each year, according to Professor Nick Wald, of the St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry.

He said, “There is no evidence or reason to regard fortification at any of the doses proposed as a risk to health, and there is compelling evidence that failure to fortify causes considerable harm.”

The meeting was held the day before the UK’s Food Standards Agency issued a report warning people against taking too many vitamin supplements. The Birth Defects Foundation issued a press release urging women to keep taking folic acid, after receiving a flood of calls to its telephone.

By: Anna Ellis,

BMJ. 2003;326(7398):1054.

Q10 and Ginkgo biloba may be taken together with blood thinners

Admin

May 5, 2003

Q10 and Ginkgo biloba may be taken together with blood thinning medication. A Danish study shows that it is non-dangerous to take the two supplements together with the blood diluting substance Warfarin.

An article in the danish medical journal, Ugeskrift for læger, rejects the suspicion that the two supplements may either weaken or enhance the effect of Warfarin (Marevan), which is typically used in the prevention and treatment of blood clots, eg in the heart or brain.

By: Vitality Council

Reference:
Ugeskrift for Laeger, 28. April 2003, no. 18.

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Fish Oil for the Heart

Claus Hancke

March 7, 2003

Essential oils in fish oil can prevent heart disease in elderly people. Quite many consumers and doctors have good experiences with this, but now it has also been confirmed by a study, recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The trial included 360 persons at the age of 65, and the researchers found that a high concentration of the fatty acids DHA and EPA is associated with a lower risk of dying of blood clots in the heart.

– “Again, this is a good example of a preventive measure with natural substances such as fish oil, pays off” says Claus Hancke, chairman of the Vitality Council.

–  Fish oil reduces the risk of both blood clots and atherosclerosis, so there is common sense in taking fish oil, especially if you do not eat as much fish.

– Research results of this type unfortunately receive far too little attention in Denmark, on the contrary, we have often been told that dietary supplements are not useful at all. As a consumer, therefore, it can be difficult to know what to believe.

– Therefore, I believe that a sober-minded information about dietary supplements such as fish oil should be one of the obvious tasks for a future Council for Exercise and Nutrition, says Hancke, who is a specialist in general medicine and General Manager of the Department of Orthomolecular Medicine in Lyngby.

Science today knows very little about the link between heart disease in the elderly and the body’s content of these fatty acids, and therefore studies like this are welcomed by the doctors who work with orthomolecular medicine on a daily basis, popularly speaking: Biological medicine.

By Vitality Council

Reference:
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 77, No. 2, 319-325, February 2003.

www.ajcn.org
www.iom.dk

Folic Acid Supplementation may Minimize the Risk of Three of the Biggest Circulatory Diseases

Admin

November 23, 2002

A study, a so called meta analysis of 92 studies involving 20,669 patients, was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) the 23 November 2002.

Earlier studies have found a connection with a too high value of the substance Homocysteine in the body with coronary diseases like blood clots in the heart, blood clots in the legs, and in the brain.

Homocysteine is increased by deficiency of several vitamin Bs, especially vitamin B12, vitamin B6 and folic acid, and by a common genetic defect that reduces the activity of an enzyme in the folic acid metabolism. The result of this defect is a condition called “functional vitamin B deficiency”, which means a need for greater intake of folic acid in the exposed ones.

Increased homocysteine – no matter the cause – has shown to be significantly related to the three following diseases. By a reduction in the homocysteine of the blood of 3 mikromol/l it was possible to decrease the incidents of heart diseases with 16%. Deep venetrombose, with or without lung emboli, with 25%. The reduction in the frequens of blood cloths in the brain (strokes) was 24%.

The authors conclude:
That by reducing the homocysteine concentration with 3 mikromol/l (which alone can be obtained by increasing the folic acid intake, editor) the risk of heart disease can be reduced with 16%, the risk of deep venetrombose with 25%, and the risk of stroke with 24%.

By: Per Tork Larsen, DSOM

Reference:
British Medical Journal; Nov, 2002.

www.bmj.com
www.iom.dk

Press Release from the Danish Society for Orthomolecular Medicine (DSOM)

Per Larsen

November 12, 2002

The Danish Society for Orthomolecular Medicine (DSOM):
Rumours that antioxidants should have no general effect on secondary prevention of heart disease originates from The Heart Protection Study published in July 2002 in the magazine The Lancet. The study was financed by e.g. the pharmaceutical companies Merck & Co. and Roche Vitamins.

The purpose of the study was, among others, to investigate Merck’s cholesterol lowering drug Zocor’s effect on various parameters such as blood clots in the heart and heart disease, etc. The study included 20,536 high-risk patients – ie. patients with known cardiovascular disease or dispositions for this – eg. diabetes.

The patients were randomized to 4 groups, of which 5000 patients received 600 mg vitamin E, 250 mg Vitamin C and 20 mg betacarotene. 5000 patients received both Zocor and vitamins. 5000 patients received Zocor only and 5,000 patients served as a joint control group. This means that the part of the study containing the vitamin group plus a joint control group comprised 10,000 people and not 20,536 persons as stated elsewhere.

Not surprisingly, the main result of the study showed that Zocor had a positive effect even at very low cholesterol values, which undoubtedly significantly increases the indication range for Zocor.

However, there are several criticisms, apart from the fact that the number of trial participants is exaggerated:

  • Dosage of vitamin E and vitamin C are not proportional to each other. The two vitamins are closely linked in the antioxidant protection of the cell. If there is an excess of one vitamin, it can have a pro-oxidant effect.
  • One will usually not give more than 100 – 200 mg of Vitamin E. Vitamin C should be given several times a day or as a prolonged-release preparation.
  • Vitamin C, as a single dose in a dose of 250 mg will only have an effect for a few hours. The half-life of vitamin C is approx. 4 hours, i.e. that from a daily dose alone you can not expect an effect at all – rather the opposite.
  • Beta-carotene has previously been tried alone in a major trial for lung cancer and smokers. Here, it appeared that this vitamin had a prooxidant effect with a prevalence of lung cancer in smokers as a result. The Heart Protection Study has not been able to confirm such an effect of an incorrectly unbalanced dosage.

The results of the study also coincide with the results found in the HOPE study, namely that there was no secondary preventive effect when consuming individual vitamins.

  • You can not study the effect of individual vitamins on diseases that have taken decades to develop. Vitamins act as co-factors and as antioxidants, they are involved in a complicated interaction with the body’s own enzymatic antioxidants in a way that we do not yet fully understand.
  • Individual vitamins or random combinations of two or three individual vitamins should not be perceived as a medicine that cures a disorder in the traditional sense, but as a method that can strengthen the body’s own antioxidant defenses.
  • You cannot simplify and define 3 different vitamins in an illogical mutual dosage for antioxidants generally. The antioxidant system reduces oxidized molecules. This is done according to the thermodynamic laws. The individual steps in this process, of which there are many, depend on the redox potential of the individual molecule. For example, urate is part of this chain. Urate is not an antioxidant in the traditional sense in everyday speech but possesses antioxidant properties just like albumin. A generalization is therefore completely incorrect.
  • The individual may have several or individual nutrient deficiencies. It is therefore not correct to study the effect of individual vitamins on chronic diseases.

Only in the last year has it become common knowledge that a substance such as Homocysteine (indicator of low B vitamins) has the greatest significance for risk and heart disease.

The content of the B vitamins: B12, B6, and folic acid in our food has decreased significantly since the Danish Ministry of Food began systematic studies of these in 1993. Thus 24% to 50% of the male population is at risk of deficiency diseases. Despite the private Nutrition Council’s stubborn adherence to the opposite, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries in Denmark is aware of this, but states that they are simply keeping an eye on developments.

The iron content of e.g. oatmeal has been reduced by 10% within just the last 5 years. The website of the British Ministry of Agriculture reports a 50% drop in selenium intake compared to 1983 and today.

………………………

By: Per Tork Larsen, M.D., DSOM

(No references)

rum.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/~hps
www.heartprotectionstudy.com/heartprotection/heartprotection/index.jsp
www.akudoc.dk
www.iom.dk

Nutritional Council’s Negative Statements Against Dietary Supplements

Claus HanckeLeave a Comment on Nutritional Council’s Negative Statements Against Dietary Supplements

12 November 2002

One again the media have been misled by the Nutritional Council’s warnings against dietary supplements.

In the news channel TV2, they stated: “Knockout for Q10 and Selenium”. This is severe disinformation of the population.

The Nutrition Council has via Steen Stender MD, reintroduced an article in The Lancet from July 6, 2002, which among others found that small doses of vitamin E, C and beta carotene had neither a beneficial or harmful effect on a risk group of cardiac patients. Q10 and Selenium are not mentioned at all in this study.

The media have uncritically settled with only listening to one party in this controversial field. -and they have not even discovered that this is a purely Danish news story. They have not wondered why this English study is not mentioned in foreign media at all.

By Vitality Council.

(No references)

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