Selective Reporting of Bad Vitamin Science-Raises Confusion

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Dear Arnold,

BAD SCIENCE + BAD MEDIA = CONFUSED CONSUMERS

The latest sleight of hand from the anti-vitamin lobby

 

16 April 2008

By Robert Verkerk PhD (Executive & Scientific Director) and Dr Damien

Downing (Medical Director)

 

Today sees the release of yet another “study†led by Serbian scientist and

“

visiting researcher†at Copenhagen University Hospital, Goran Bjelakovic.

His name is now synonymous with vitamin meta-analyses (studies of other

studies) which appear to show that vitamin supplements either don’t work or

end up

increasing your risk of death. Two recent bursts of negative international

headlines on vitamins supplements (1 October 2004 and 28 February 2007)

followed

releases of previous research papers (see asterisked articles in Reference

list below).

 

What consumers need to know and are not being told is:

 

1. This isn’t new. This isn’t a new study! This a scientific rehash of the

very same data sets that led to the previous negative studies – and these

methodologies tell us nothing about the way in which high quality combinations

of nutrient supplements work! For a previous critique on why the methods used

are irrelevant, see a detailed analysis by Dr Steve Hickey, a member of the

ANH Scientific Expert Committee:

_http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_270.pdf_

(http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_270.pdf)

2. This isn’t research. This is a re-analysis of studies that have been

conducted and reported on previously, by a man at a computer. In this case a

group of men with a known axe to grind, who have never produced a study

favourable to supplements, which is itself statistically unlikely unless you

have a

bias.

 

3. This isn’t meaningful. When you select or reject studies on criteria that

only mean something to statisticians, and ignore important things like

duration, how long the study ran for — which ranged from 28 days to 14 years

—

your findings are immediately meaningless. Even the huge difference in dose of

supplements between different studies — Vitamin E ranging from 10 to 5000

units daily, for instance — they didn’t deem important.

 

4. Two bites at the cherry. The anti-vitamin lobby has managed to benefit,

yet again, from more anti-vitamin headlines, just by republishing the same

study on previous studies – again! Bjelakovic’s latest assault, published

today

through the Cochrane Review system, is more or less a dead ringer for a

paper by the very same authors, published last year (28 February 2007) in the

Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Extensive international

media followed the 2007 JAMA paper, including a front page article in the Times

newspaper, which told consumers that vitamin pills could cause early death.

Today’s Cochrane review relies on 67 studies rather than the 68 used in the

JAMA paper. In evaluating studies for inclusion, the authors omitted a massive

405 potentially eligible studies BECAUSE there were no deaths in the studies!!

Another 69 studies were excluded because they weren’t randomised controlled

trials! Most of the trials used pertain to already sick people being given

very high dose, synthetic, isolated nutrients for relatively short periods –

they therefore have no relevance to the vast majority of vitamin consumers!

5. These studies apply only to synthetic forms of vitamins (as produced by

the pharmaceutical industry). The authors of this latest Cochrane review

state: “The present review does not assess antioxidant supplements for

treatment

of specific diseases (tertiary prevention), antioxidant supplements for

patients with demonstrated specific needs of antioxidants, or the effects of

antioxidants contained in fruits or vegetables.†This shows that the study

has no

relevance to natural sources of vitamins and minerals or antioxidants sourced

from plants (e.g. flavanoids, anthocyanins, sulforaphanes,

salvestrols/resveratrol, etc.), which are included in many of the leading-edge

natural health

supplements claiming potent antioxidant activity.

6. There is extensive scientific evidence that higher intakes of vitamins in

the forms and combinations consumed in the diet substantially reduce risk of

killer diseases such as cancer and heart disease. In fact, it is this

research (some of which is referenced in the introduction to both the JAMA and

Cochrane papers) that has stimulated pharmaceutical companies to undertake

research on pharmaceutical-grade, synthetic forms of supplements, which they

manufacture. There are good reasons why this pharma-sponsored research has

generally yielded disappointing results. These reasons have been considered in

many

previous rebuttals. See also:

_http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_231.pdf_

(http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_231.pdf)

 

7. Over the top on synthetics! The studies included in the latest

meta-analysis rely on very high dosages of pharmaceutical-grade, synthetic

forms of

supplements manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry. The dosages used are

typically much greater than those recommended on the labels of food or dietary

supplement products. In most countries, the dosages used in the trials would

be considered ‘medicinal’ by regulatory authorities and therefore would not

legally be allowed for food or dietary supplements.

 

The authors, the editorial boards of the journals that so readily

accommodate the papers, as well as the media which then spin the findings,

appear

unable to bear the thought that consumers know what they are doing.

 

They forget the power of experience and observation, and that so many people

taking these products have experienced startling, positive results. If you

read a headline in a newspaper relaying some anti-vitamin hype from an

anti-supplement research group in Denmark and you, and your friends and family

around you, have all experienced positive results with supplements, would you

stop

taking your supplements?

 

Have they forgotten the significance of the countl ess findings of

observational and epidemiological studies, which demonstrate strong

correlations

between high intakes of natural sources of nutrients and substantially reduced

risks of chronic disease?

 

Do they not realise that their failure to duplicate these results with

synthetic vitamins might be more down to the differences between natural and

synthetic, as well as the non-applicability of their methods, rather than that

their meta-analyses have now disproven what has been observed scientifically

over decades?!

 

They forget, it seems, that most people are already, or are fast becoming,

disillusioned with evidence-based medicine (EBM), which is now generally

agreed, scientifically, to be the third or fourth leading cause of death in

western societies.

 

It seems also that more and more people no longer wish to worship at the

altar of EBM, the most important component of which is the randomised clinical

trial (RCT). RCTs, the gold standard for EBM, fail, for reasons that are

becoming increasingly clear, to amply demonstrate or help elucidate the complex

responses that humans show when they choose to engage in natural systems of

healthcare. Science is able to answer many questions, but not when its tools

are used either by those with narrowed minds or those with an insatiable desire

to control healthcare through the use of patented drugs based on

new-to-nature molecules.

 

It has to be asked what the Cochrane Collaboration is doing, allowing,

endorsing and indeed promoting unscientific, invalid rehashes such as this.

Cochrane were supposed to be the only guys you really could trust.

REFERENCES

 

**Bjelakovic G, Nikolova D, Gluud LL, Simonetti RG, Gluud C. Mortality in

randomized trials of antioxidant supplements for primary and secondary

prevention: systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA. 2007 Feb 28;

297(8):842-57.

Review.

 

Bjelakovic G, Nagorni A, Nikolova D, Simonetti RG, Bjelakovic M, Gluud C.

Meta-analysis: antioxidant supplements for primary and secondary prevention of

colorectal adenoma. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2006 Jul 15;24(2):281-91. Review.

 

Bjelakovic G, Nikolova D, Simonetti RG, Gluud C. Antioxidant supplements for

preventing gastrointestinal cancers. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2004 Oct

18;(4):CD004183. Review.

 

*Bjelakovic G, Nikolova D, Simonetti RG, Gluud C. Antioxidant supplements

for prevention of gastrointestinal cancers: a systematic review and

meta-analysis. Lancet. 2004 Oct 2-8;364(9441):1219-28. Review.

** Paper on which latest Cochrane review is based; negative findings created

wide media interest

 

* Paper which created extensive media interest and formed basis of Cochrane

review published in the same month.

 

 

 

 

 

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