Ten Ways to Spot Anti-Vitamin Biases in a Scientific Study

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Ten Ways to Spot Anti-Vitamin Biases in a Scientific

Study

 

1. Where’s the beef? How much of the original study

is quoted in the media? Are you just getting

factoids, or are data provided? Has the journalist

writing about the subject actually read the original

paper?

 

 

2. What exactly was studied, and how? Was it an IN

VITRO (test-tube) study or an IN VIVO (animal) study?

Was there a CLINICAL STUDY on people, or is its

application to real life a matter of conjecture?

 

 

3. Follow the Money. Who paid for the study? Cash

from food processors, pharmaceutical giants, and other

deep pockets decides what gets studied, and how. It

is very difficult, if not impossible, for researchers

to present findings that embarrass their financial

backers. Published research will often indicate

sources of funding, possibly at the end of the paper

in an acknowledgements paragraph. If not,

correspondence addesses of principle authors are

invariably provided. Write and ask.

 

 

4. Check the dosages. Any vitamin C study using less

than 2,000 mg a day is a waste of time. Any vitamin E

study employing less than 400 International Units

(I.U.) is a waste of time. Any study using less than

1,000 mg niacin a day is a waste of time. All low-dose

studies are set up to fail. Low doses of vitamins do

not cure major diseases. Large doses cure diseases.

 

 

5. Check the form of supplement used. Was the vitamin

used in the study natural or synthetic? Any carotene

study using the synthetic form of beta-carotene only

is a waste of time. Any vitamin E study using the

synthetic DL-alpha form is a waste of time.

 

 

6. Use the Pauling Principle: read the entire study

and interpret the data for yourself. Do not rely on

the summary and/or conclusions of the study authors.

As Linus Pauling pointed out repeatedly, many

researchers miss, or dismiss, the statistical

significance of their own work. Such behavior may be

human error, or it may be politically motivated.

Beware of editorializing.

 

 

7. Beware of Pauling-bashers. If a media article is

critical about twice Nobel prize-winning Linus

Pauling, you can be confident it has been

spin-doctored.

 

 

8. Watch for these throw-away slams against

supplements:

 

“You get all the vitamins you need form your daily

diet.”

“Vitamins are dangerous if you take too many of them.”

“Excess vitamins are wasted.”

“More research is needed before supplements can be

recommended.”

“There is no scientific support for large vitamin

doses.”

 

 

9. Watch for pontifical public recommendations at the

end of the article such as:

 

" Vitamins can do some good things, but can do some bad

things as well. "

“You are better off not popping vitamin pills.”

“Just eat a balanced diet.”

“If you take vitamins, take no more than the US RDA.”

 

 

10. Use the media backwards. The more headlines about

a particular study, the more politically charged the

subject and the less likely that the reporting, or the

original study, is positive towards vitamins.

Negative news sells newspapers, and magazines, and

gets lots of viewers. Positive drug studies do get

headlines, of course. Positive vitamin studies do

not. Is this a conspiracy? You mean with shady people

all sitting around a shaded table in a darkened back

room? Of course not. It is nevertheless an enormous

public health problem with enormous consequences.

Consider what might be called Saul’s Law of the Media:

“Press and television coverage of a vitamin study is

inversely proportionate to the study’s clinical

usefulness.” In other words, the more media hoopla,

the worse the research. Truly valuable research does

not scare people; it helps people get well. There are

over 3,000 scientific references at Doctor

Yourself.com for people who share in this goal.

 

 

Copyright 2001 and prior years by Andrew Saul, Number

8 Van Buren Street, Holley, New York 14470 USA

Telephone (585) 638-5357