To The Editor re Vitamin Use May Increase Death Rates of Users

[Guest guest]

Until I see alot more evidence than what is presented here, I just

view this as another piece of the usual misinformation put out by Big

Biz and Big Pharma. It is an ongoing attack with false information

that gets unproven eventually but never aired by the mainstream media

so they a large goup of consumers get more afraid and misinformed over

time. F.

 

 

1 Oct 2004 22:08:04 -0000

" IAHF.COM " <jham

 

To The Editor re " Vitamin Use May Increase Death Rates of Users "

 

IAHF Webmaster: Breaking News, Whats New, What to Do, Codex, EU FSD,

Trans Tasman HARM-onization, All Countries

 

IAHF List: An IAHF r in Germany who has chemical

sensitivities and who will die if she loses her access to healing

nutrients called this UK INDEPENDENT newspaper article called " Vitamin

Use May Increase Death Rate of Users " to my attention today. [see it

below my comments along with my letter to the editor complaining about

it.]

 

Today I have seen very similar muck raking yellow journalism articles

about the outrageously biased LANCET study (see below) in newspapers

all over the world.

 

In my complaint to the Editor I reference Patrick Holford's excellent

scientific rebuttal to the LANCET article (see Holford's hard hitting

review below).

 

I urge you to send your OWN letter to the editor of the INDEPENDENT at

letters to join me in complaining about this

irresponsible, unbalanced " journalism. "

 

Let this be a WAKE UP call to those vitamin consumers world wide who

have their heads in the sand regarding the CODEX International Threat

to Health Freedom. We're up against a Eugenics Agenda due to PEAK OIL

being upon us http://www.peakoil.org/

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

 

The rush to force biometric identifiers on us

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/10/01/fingerprinting.allies.ap/index.html

is part of an emerging global police state in which the Codex

Alimentarius Commission is a key part of using FOOD CONTROL for PEOPLE

CONTROL.

 

PLEASE HELP IAHF TO SPUR MORE WIDESPREAD AWARENESS- Urge more people

to sign onto http://www.iahf.com to receive this newsletter, and urge

them to DOWNLOAD the emergency ANTI CODEX Materials from the FLASHING

BANNER on the front page of the site and to help get them around to

every health food store, vitamin company, and consumer you possibly can.

 

THANK YOU to those of you who have sent donations!! We've got the RT

plane ticket paid for for one of the KEY people we need to send to the

Codex meeting in Bonn on November 1 as part of our MONKEYWRENCHING

STRATEGY, and ADDITIONAL HELP is still BADLY NEEDED to get our OTHER

key person across the pond for this meeting.

 

Candace and I will be part of an EMERGENCY anti CODEX meeting at the

upcoming ACAM meeting in San Diego in November, and we are succeeding

in waking a lot more people up but need your HELP!! The IAHF list

should be growing by over 100 new people per day, but that won't

happen unless all of you work a LOT harder than you have been to

SPREADING THE WORD that we're under ATTACK!!

 

Hopefully, the muckraking yellow journalism below from the UK's

Independent will HELP you to alert people, especially when you realize

that versions of Laurance's article appeared today in Newspapers WORLD

WIDE.... PLEASE!! Donate to IAHF 556 Boundary Bay Rd. Point Roberts,

WA 98281 USA or via paypal at http://www.iahf.com and write your OWN

letter to the editor of the Independent and OTHER newspapers about

this biased LANCET Report:

 

 

letters

To the Editor- re " Vitamin Use May Increase Death Rates of

Users "

 

 

To the Editor:

 

The Lancet article referenced by health editor Jeremy Laurance in his

piece " Vitamin Use May Increase Death Rate of Users "

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=567650

is one of the most biased supposedly " scientific " articles I've ever

seen.

 

Enclosed is Patrick Holford's interpretation which I'm strongly

inclined to agree with especially because my LIFE was saved via

orthomolecular medicine, a suppressed alternative treatment mode

involving the use of dietary supplements after mainstream medicine

almost killed me over 20 years ago. The well meaning physicians who

nearly killed me had a near total ignorance of clinical nutrition

because of the influence pharmaceutical companies wield over medical

schools.

 

Increasingly we're seeing outrageously biased, supposedly " scientific "

articles against dietary supplements in mainstream medical journals

because their publishing costs are underwritten by full page glossy

advertisements for patented pharmaceutical drugs which cost millions

to put through the FDA's approval process, and the last thing these

drug companies want is COMPETITION from non patentable natural

substances which help people stay healthy, and AWAY from hospitals and

doctors who have a " business with disease. " I

 

n addition to Holford's analysis of the Lancet article in question I'd

like to refer Mr.Laurance and your readers to Gary Null, PhDs well

researched article DEATH BY MEDICINE which puts things a lot more in

perspective

http://www.garynull.com/Article.aspx?Article=/documents/iatrogenic/deathbym=

edicine/deathbymedicine1.htm

 

 

Null documents from data gathered in peer review medical journals that

783,936 iatrogenic drug deaths occurred in America last year making

the use of prescription drugs the leading cause of death in America

today with the equivalent of a 747 full of people crashing and burning

from toxic drug reactions every day of the year.

 

For some perspective on the relative dangers posed by prescription

drugs compared with dietary supplements see this analysis:

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

 

Vitamin consumers all over Britain should support the Alliance for

Natural Health's efforts to overturn the illegal EU Food Supplement

Directive. ANH won a referral from the High Court in London to

challenge the Directive, and have filed to appear before the ECJ which

will hear their case as soon as possible

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org See my

article " Europe Threatening to Ban Dietary Supplements "

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2003/2003_preprint_eu_01.htm

 

John C. Hammell, President

International Advocates for Health Freedom

556 Boundary Bay Rd.

Point Roberts, WA 98281 USA

http://www.iahf.com

800-333-2553 N.America

360-945-0352 World

 

from http://www.patrickholford.com

 

 

Lancet Antioxidant Cancer Trial Shows BENEFIT, Not Harm

 

 

A study, published in the Lancet currently, on antioxidants and

gastrointestinal cancer, is being claimed to indicate that

antioxidants don't reduce risk, and may even increase cancer risk.

However, experts in nutrition and cancer say the study shows nothing

of the sort.

 

In my opinion this is one of the most biased and unsubstantiated

reports on antioxidants I've ever read. If you look at the actual

results of this supposed comprehensive analysis of research you will

see that the only really significant finding in a considerable

reduction in gastrointestinal cancer risk with selenium

supplementation. Overall, it shows that antioxidant supplements reduce

the risk of oesophageal cancer, have little effect on pancreatic or

oesophageal cancer, and slightly increase the risk of gastric cancer.

 

Overall, the clear trend is towards protection, not harm. I believe

this is an underestimation of the prevention power of antioxidants

because this claimed comprehensive analysis of research excludes some

very well designed positive studies, such as a trial of 864 people

with a history of colorectal adenomas, by the National Cancer

Institute (1). The participants were given either 25mg of

betacarotene and/or both 100mg of vitamin C and 400mg of vitamin E,

versus placebo. While there was approximately a halving of recurrence

of colorectal adenomas in those who took either the betacarotene or

vitamin C and E or both, there was a modest increase in cancer

recurrence among those who only took betacarotene supplements and both

smoked and drank alcohol every day. Why was this trial excluded?

Perhaps it didn't give the results the researchers wanted.

 

The final table in the Lancet study, which is the only one showing a

small negative overall effect on mortality (the difference between 1

in 14 cancer patients on antioxidants, versus 1 in 15 cancer

patients), was arrived at by removing any positive studies on the

grounds of `low methodological quality', leaving only 7 studies out of

the original 167 studies! Of these studies, one is quoted as showing a

massive increased risk. Without this study there is no such effect.

However, this study actual showed the exact opposite. The study in

question, Correa et al (2), published in the Journal of the National

Cancer Institute, gave people with gastric cancer either

beta-carotene, vitamin C or anti-Helicobacter Pylori treatment

(gastric cancer is increasingly being thought to

be initiated by H.Pylori infection, not antioxidant deficiency). All

three interventions produced highly significantly improvements,

causing substantial regression of gastric cancer. The authors conclude

" dietary supplementation with antioxidant micronutrients may interfere

with the precancerous process, mostly by increasing the rate of

regression of cancer precursor lesions, and may be an effective

strategy to prevent gastric carcinoma. " (see abstract below).

 

So, how could this study bias the results towards increased mortality?

For the simple reason that six people out of 368 treated with

antioxidants died, many of whom were smokers, compared to none out of

117 people treated with anti- H.Pylori treatment died! The most

logical explanation for this finding is that, by virtue of

participating in this trial, these patients were excluded from taking

anti- H.Pylori treatment, which is highly recommended for gastric

cancer. It is highly unlikely that the antioxidants had anything to do

with it. The authors of this study make no reference to the

possibility of antioxidants increasing mortality

risk, instead concluding that both beta-carotene and vitamin C reduce

risk.

 

A review of the Lancet study (also published in the Lancet) by David

Forman and Douglas Altman of the Centre for Epidemiology and

Biostatistics says " The mortality analysis in this review does not

offer convincing proof of hazard. " In my opinion this is the most

atrocious piece of biased number crunching, and I'm surprised that the

Lancet published it.

 

The funding source for this trial should be seriously investigated,

just to check it is not as biased as the rhetoric. Drug companies have

a lot to gain by discrediting nutritional treatments and I have no

doubt that there is an orchestrated campaign under way to do just

this. I certainly won't be stopping my daily antioxidant supplement,

although I wouldn't advise heavy smokers to supplement beta-carotene

on its own. I would advise people wanting to reduce their cancer risk

to supplement 50 to 150mcg of selenium, together with other

antioxidant nutrients. "

 

Patrick Holford.

 

References

 

1 Baron, J et al., `Neoplastic and antineoplastic effects of

beta-carotene on volorectal adenoma', J Natl Cancer Inst. 95, 10, pp.

717–22

(2003).

 

2 Correa P et al., `Chemoprevention of gastric dysplasia:randomised

trial of antioxidant supplements and anti-helicobacter pylori therapapy',

J Natl Cancer Inst. 2000 Dec 6;92(23):1881-8.

 

ABSTRACT OF THE CRITICAL STUDY

 

J Natl Cancer Inst. 2000 Dec 6;92(23):1881-8. Chemoprevention of

gastric dysplasia: randomized trial of antioxidant supplements and

anti-helicobacter pylori therapy.

Correa P, Fontham ET, Bravo JC, Bravo LE, Ruiz B, Zarama G, Realpe JL,

Malcom GT, Li D, Johnson WD, Mera R.Department of Pathology, Louisiana

State University Health Sciences Center, New Orleans, LA 70112-1393,

USA.

 

BACKGROUND: Previous research has identified a high risk of gastric

carcinoma as well as a high prevalence of cancer precursor lesions in

rural populations living in the province of Narino, Colombia, in the

Andes Mountains. METHODS: A randomized, controlled chemoprevention

trial was conducted in subjects with confirmed histologic diagnoses of

multifocal nonmetaplastic atrophy and/or intestinal metaplasia, two

precancerous lesions. Individuals were assigned to receive

anti-Helicobacter pylori triple therapy and/or dietary supplementation

with ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, or their corresponding placebos.

Gastric biopsy specimens taken at baseline were compared with those

taken at 72 months. Relative risks of progression, no change, and

regression from multifocal nonmetaplastic atrophy and intestinal

metaplasia were analyzed with multivariate

polytomous logistic regression models to estimate treatment effects.

All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS: All three basic

interventions resulted in statistically significant increases in the

rates of regression: Relative risks were 4.8 (95% confidence interval

[CI] = 1.6-14.2) for anti-H. pylori treatment, 5. 1 (95% CI =

1.7-15.0) for beta-carotene treatment, and 5.0 (95% CI = 1.7-14.4) for

ascorbic acid treatment in subjects with atrophy. Corresponding

relative risks of regression in subjects with intestinal metaplasia

were 3.1 (95% CI = 1.0-9.3), 3.4

(95% CI = 1.1-9.8), and 3.3 (95% CI = 1.1-9.5). Combinations of

treatments did not statistically significantly increase the regression

rates.

Curing the H. pylori infection (which occurred in 74% of the treated

subjects) produced a marked and statistically significant increase in the

rate of regression of the precursor lesions (relative risks = 8.7 [95%

CI = 2.7-28.2] for subjects with atrophy and 5.4 [95% CI = 1.7-17.6]

for subjects with intestinal metaplasia). CONCLUSIONS: In the very

high-risk population studied, effective anti-H. pylori treatment and

dietary

supplementation with antioxidant micronutrients may interfere with the

precancerous process, mostly by increasing the rate of regression of

cancer precursor lesions, and may be an effective strategy to prevent

gastric carcinoma

 

1. Baron, J et al., `Neoplastic and antineoplastic effects of

beta-carotene on volorectal adenoma', Journal of the National Cancer

Institute

95, 10, pp. 717–22 (2003).

 

 

 

idt

 

 

 

 

Vitamin boosts may increase death rate of users, report says

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/story.jsp?story=567650

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor

The Independent. 01 October 2004

 

Thousands of people could be dying prematurely from vitamin

supplements, researchers report today, stating that the pills

increase the death rate of those who take them by 6 per cent.

 

One in three women and one in four men in the UK is estimated to take

dietary supplements for health reasons. But a review of 14 trials of

vitamin pills taken by 170,000 people found they increased the death

rate by 6 per cent. While they offered no explanation as to what

caused the deaths, they discovered that the supplements offered no

protection against cancers of the gut.

 

The researchers, writing in The Lancet, estimate that for every one

million people taking the supplements, 9,000 would die prematurely as

a result. The figure takes account of the background level of

premature death in the population.

 

Dr Goran Bjelakovic, of the University of Nis in Serbia, who led the

review, said: " We could not find evidence that antioxidant

supplements can prevent gastrointestinal cancers. On the contrary,

they seem to increase overall mortality. "

 

Two UK experts described the findings as " somewhat chilling " .

Professor David Forman of the University of Leeds and Douglas Altman

of Cancer Research UK says in The Lancet: " The prospect that vitamin

pills may not only do no good but also kill their consumers is a

scary speculation given the vast quantities that are used in certain

communities. "

 

The Lancet has printed the quote in large type on the cover of its

current issue.

 

Professor Forman said yesterday that supplements could be useful for

people such as pregnant women and the elderly, who might be unable to

get adequate vitamins from their diet. But they did not offer a short

cut to better health.

 

For the majority of the population who ate a balanced diet, there

were no ground for taking vitamin supplements, he said. " If someone

has a good reason for taking these supplements other than to prevent

cancer, then they should continue to do so. But I remain sceptical of

their overall value. "

 

The Lancet study is the latest to cast doubt on the value of dietary

supplements.

 

A huge trial of betacarotene (the pre-cursor of vitamin A) and

vitamin E in male smokers in 2000 found it increased the lung cancer

rate by 18 per cent and the death rate by 8 per cent. Smokers are now

advised against taking these vitamins pills.

 

A second trial of multivitamin supplements in people at high risk of

heart disease published in 2002, also in The Lancet, found that after

five years they had no protective effect against the risk of heart

attacks, strokes, cancer or other serious health problems.

 

Vitamins are organic nutrients essential for normal metabolism and

good health. But specialists say there is a difference between the

life-long physiological effects of small amounts ingested in the diet

from childhood and pharmacological doses of the same micronutrients

taken over a few years by middle-aged adults.

 

For the latest study, the researchers examined the role of vitamins

A, C, E and betacarotene (which is converted into vitamin A in the

body) and the mineral selenium, taken either singly or in combination.

 

They investigated their effect against cancers of the oesophagus

(gullet), stomach, bowel, pancreas and liver.

 

The results showed that a combination of betacarotene and vitamin A

increased the death rate by 30 per cent and betacarotene combined

with vitamin E increased it by 10 per cent. Selenium was associated

with a lower risk of cancer, but the authors say this could be due to

bias.

 

A possible explanation for the findings is that people may vary in

their need for antioxidants (vitamins) according to the circulating

levels of substances known as free radicals in the blood. Those with

high levels of free radicals need extra vitamins to neutralise them

but in those with low levels, extra vitamins may paradoxically

protect cancer cells and have carcinogenic effects.

 

The researchers acknowledge they did not look at all trials of

vitamin supplements in preventing death and their results are

preliminary. The Lancet commentary says that the study is a " work in

progress " and " does not provide convincing proof of hazard " .

 

It adds: " In the event that a hazard is established from a complete

review, these researchers will need to identify which specific

interventions are associated with any risk. It is unlikely that all

supplements will exert a similar effect and it will be vital to

establish the safety profile for those with demonstrated benefits. "

 

The Health Supplements Information Service, said in a statement

yesterday that The Lancet findings were of " borderline statistical

significance " and involved some vitamin doses above recommended safe

levels. It added: " What is important to take away from this piece of

research is that these results are preliminary and further

investigations into the role of vitamins in cancer are needed. "

 

Vitamins are either fat soluble or water soluble. The fat-soluble

vitamins, which include A, D, E, and K, are absorbed by the body

using processes that closely parallel the absorption of fat. They are

stored in the liver and are used up by the body very slowly.

 

The water-soluble vitamins include C and the B complex vitamins. The

body uses these vitamins very quickly and excess amounts are

eliminated through the kidneys. Taking large doses of vitamin C or B,

beyond what the body can immediately absorb, only creates expensive

urine.

 

THE PROS AND CONS OF VITAMINS

 

Vitamin A

 

Essential for growth, bone development, night vision and healthy skin.

 

Found in liver, dairy products and eggs. Also in dark red, green and

yellow vegetables. Deficiency causes skin disorders, eye damage and

may increase the risk of cancer.

 

Toxic in overdose, causing dizziness, nausea, vomiting and can cause

damage to the bones, blood, skin and nervous system.

 

Betacarotene

 

Found in many yellow fruits and vegetables.

 

Converted into vitamin A in the body (see above).

 

Vitamin C

 

Essential for the production of collagen, the basic protein in bones,

cartilage, tendons and ligaments. May help boost the immune system.

 

Found in citrus fruits, tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflowers and Brussels

sprouts.

 

Deficiency causes tiredness, weight loss, irritability, bleeding gums,

rough

skin and wasting away of muscles. In extreme cases, scurvy.

 

High doses, above 2gms a day, may cause headaches and diarrhoea.

Long-term

high doses may increase risk for kidney stones.

 

Vitamin E

 

Helps prevent cell membrane damage. May prevent blood clots and the

formation of fatty plaques in the arteries.

 

Found in vegetable oil, avocados, nuts and soya beans. Also produced

by

bacteria in the intestines.

 

Deficiency may result in easy bruising and bleeding. May increase the

risk

of hip fractures in women.

 

Large doses may cause bleeding problems, rashes and itching.

For Health Freedom,

John C. Hammell, President

International Advocates for Health Freedom

556 Boundary Bay Road

Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA

http://www.iahf.com

jham

800-333-2553 N.America

360-945-0352 World