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Heart docs malign vitamins again

Fri, 13 Jun 2003 18:07:56 -0700

 

KNOWLEDGE OF HEALTH, INC.

457 West Allen Avenue, Unit 117, San Dimas, CA 91773

Telephone: 909 596-9507 | Fax: 909 596-9189 | Email: Bsardi

 

For Immediate Release Contact: Bill Sardi

 

Heart Doctors Reveal Biases In Their Recommendation To Avoid Antioxidant Vitamin

Supplements

 

San Dimas, CA- A widely reported study, published in the June 14 issue of The

Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, mistakenly discourages the public

from taking antioxidant food supplements and reveals common biases among heart

doctors, says Bill Sardi, consumer advocate and president of Knowledge of

Health, Inc., San Dimas, Calif.

 

“These researchers are mistakenly frightening the public away from antioxidant

vitamin supplements while ignoring the drawbacks of the drug therapies they so

frequently prescribe,” says Sardi.

 

“First,” says Sardi, “the widely-aired report gives the false impression that

there is some kind of widespread hazard when in fact the alleged increased

mortality associated with beta carotene and vitamin E supplements never even

reached one-percent.” The report in Lancet cites a 7.4 percent mortality rate

with beta carotene supplements versus 7.0 percent without supplements, and an

11.3 percent mortality rate with supplemental vitamin E versus 11.1 percent with

no supplements. “These may just be chance findings. A repeat of the same studies

might produce results that would tip to the other side of the scale and show

that these vitamins slightly decrease mortality rates. In either case, they

would not be significant,” says Sardi. Additionally, supplemental vitamin C and

E help to prevent arterial and heart disease and may not show benefits among

patients with existing cardiac disease, the group that was studied in the Lancet

report.

 

“Second, the authors of the Lancet report mischaracterize antioxidant vitamins

as interfering with cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. A recent study showed

that supplemental vitamin blunted the rise in HDL-good cholesterol when niacin

and statin drugs were used. In fact, vitamins C and E help to rescue the liver

from the toxic drugs, but this is misinterpreted as posing a hazard,” emphasizes

Sardi.

 

“Compare this report, used to denigrate supplemental antioxidant vitamins, with

the questionable benefits of statin drugs which the authors of the Lancet report

promote in other papers they have written,” says Sardi. The largest study of its

kind, recently reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association,

showed that statin drugs only produce an 0.4 percent drop in mortality (not even

1 percent), and increase the risk of liver problems by 0.5 to 2.0 percent and

the risk of a potentially mortal muscle-degeneration by 0.2 percent, about the

same “risk” posed by the supplemental antioxidant vitamins. “You can’t talk out

of two sides of your mouth here,” says Sardi. “How come the drugs are safe and

vitamins are potentially troublesome using similar statistics,” asks Sardi.

 

“Essentially, this report suggests adults abandon antioxidant vitamin

supplements and blindly submit to widespread statin drug therapy which is only

beneficial in 8 out of 100 patients who take them, which causes side effects

that force 35 percent of users to switch to other medications, 4-5 percent who

must abandon them, and causes muscle soreness in up to 5 percent of statin-drug

users which is a sign of a potentially mortal side effect,” indicates Sardi.

 

A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association recently recommended

every American take a multivitamin. Sardi says Americans ought to heed that

advice, continue to take their vitamins, and dismiss these alarmist reports

which don’t reveal the biases of their authors. ####

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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