Safety of Dietary Supplements

[Guest guest]

Safety of Dietary Supplements

http://www.laleva.cc/petizione/english/ronlaw_eng.html

 

It's fascinating how when there is one suspected adverse reaction to

a dietary supplement it makes the headlines, and yet officials and

the media are oblivious to the plethora of deaths due to properly

regulated, properly prescribed and properly used drugs – not to

mention avoidable deaths due to medical misadventure. This graph

highlights the relative safety of dietary supplements compared to

many other causes of death. Although they are USA figures, by and

large they compare with NZ figures.

 

Figure 1: Statistical comparism of frequent causes of death (USA)

Figure 1a: Risk of supplements relative to other factors (New Zeland

2002)

 

 

Note:

 

 

Properly researched, regulated, prescribed and properly used drugs

are the fourth most common cause of death – but they are never

reported. (Source, Journal of the American Medical Association -

Range 90,000 to 160,000 deaths per year.) That's a Boeing 747

crashing every day! 46 people die every day from Aspirin alone in

the USA.

 

Avoidable medical misadventure is the sixth most common cause of

death. (Source, CDC - range 40,000 to 90,000) In Australia 9,000

people die from avoidable medical misadventure every year. (Source,

Australian Medical Journal). In Australia 50,000 people are maimed

by medical misadventure every year. (AMJ)

 

The figures used in this chart are at the lower end of the range (we

wouldn't want to be accused of exaggerating!)

 

Food poisoning/adverse reactions causes between 5,000 to 9,000

deaths per year. (Source, CDC.)

 

Dietary supplements have averaged less than 5 confirmed deaths per

year over the past 25 years in the USA. Most of those relate to a

single batch of genetically engineered tryptophan introduced in the

late 1980's. (Source, CDC/FDA) There have been no proven deaths to

dietary supplements in NZ.

 

A wide range of dietary supplements are consumed by over 50% of the

population in both the USA and New Zealand (Source, NIH/MOH)

 

You are less likely to die from taking a supplement than dying from

bee stings, sports injuries, lightening, animal bites, horse riding,

radon gas, etc, etc.

 

Dietary supplements are incredibly safe.

 

Dietary supplements have the potential to reduce deaths from cancers

and heart disease by over 50%. (Optimists would go as high as 75%)

 

Greater than 26,000 times more people die from preventable medical

misadventure and properly regulated, properly prescribed and

properly used drugs than from dietary supplements.

 

You can have every confidence in assuring the safety of dietary

supplements.

 

There have been two deaths reported as being linked to dietary

supplements in NZ – both were in people with malignant cancer who

consumed the herbal mixture K4. Neither were proven to be due to K4.

The coroner in one case said there was no evidence to link K4 to one

of the deaths – he had terminal cancer of the liver, took K4 and

died of liver failure. Officials tried to blame his death on K4.

Despite the evidence to the contrary, K4 was banned.

 

There was a recent media report linking Ginkgo Biloba to the death

of a heart patient due to cerebral haemorrhage. The patient had been

taking Ginko for some time. He was taking blood thinning drugs which

are notorious for causing cerebral haemorrhage. Contrary to media

reports, papers obtained by the NNFA under the official information

act revealed that the MARC did not find Ginkgo to be the cause of

death.

 

Think about this...

 

 

Vets have long known and recommended not to feed your nutrient

deficient leftovers to your pets – they'll get sick – so... all

commercially prepared pet foods contain dietary supplements. Cattle,

sheep, horses, goats, laboratory rabbits & rats etc need dietary

supplements to remain healthy. We've long known that pastures and

crops need dietary supplements (fertiliser) to grow well. Yet it is

still denied by officials that humans need dietary supplements –

despite the plethora of evidence and commonsense that says

otherwise. Our regulators are tying to convince use that despite the

fact that our pets need supplements, our farm animals need

supplements, our crops need supplements – humans don't.

 

Stunning Reports on Cancer

Harvard University recently released a report on the prevention of

cancer of the colon. Top of the pops were exercise and longterm

folic acid containing multivitamin supplementation. Harvard

University has been undertaking a longitudinal study of nearly

100,000 nurses for about twenty years. Their research has shown that

the impact of folic acid supplementation reduces cancer of the colon

by a massive 75-80%. (See figure 2.)

At the same time John Hopkin's Medical Center's nutrition department

recently stated, " Based on studies where people take a supplement,

vitamin E seems to reduce risk of some cancers by 60 to 70 percent.

Increased levels of vitamin E also appear to decrease the amount of

fat (lipids) in the arteries, and to reduce the risk of heart

disease by 80 to 90 percent. " WOW! They then go on to say that they

don't recommend supplements. Hello?

 

 

Figure 2 Reduction of risk of cancer of the colon

 

 

 

 

 

Larry Clark from Arizona University found, in a controlled multi

centre study, that a daily selenium supplement cut cancer mortality

in half, leading at the same time to a 46-63 percent reduction in

the incidence of lung-, prostate-, and colorectal cancer.

(www.selenium.org) Given that New Zealand has one of the highest

rates of all three cancers, and given that the cure rates for these

three forms of cancer are relatively low, less than 10% for lung

cancer, and about 50% for bowel cancer, it makes sense to recommend

folic acid and selenium supplements to your customers. Ask them what

they would prefer, lowering the risk of getting and dying from

cancer by 50% or get it and then have less than a 50% chance of a

cure? Not to mention the unpleasant treatment, nor the fact that 20%

of cancer suffers get a second cancer due to their treatment without

being told this fact.

Eat right and take a Multivitamin [with folic acid].

" The current evidence suggests that people who take such supplements

and their children are healthier. " Dr G Oakley from the Center for

Disease Control talking about `standard' multivitamins with 400 ug

of folic acid. NEJM, April 1998.

 

If every one in NZ took a multivitamin....

 

This article was prepared by Ron Law, former executive director of

the New Zealand National Nutritional Foods Association and member of

a New Zealand government working group advising on strategies for

reducing medical error