Vitamins - A Waste of Money Article

Here is the topic article from Dec 2013. It is based from Johns Hopkins with Dr Edgar Miller. While he has outstanding credentials, there is an issue that leads to questions about his motives. See for yourself. Another more recent work also from Johns Hopkins.

FROM THE REPORT: “We believe that the case is closed -- supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful...” 

The first question: What percent of adults are well-nourished? 

The second question: What if the wrong form of nutrient or dosage was used in many if not most research studies?

ANALYSIS:  Past studies looking at nutrients from just food sources yielded positive results. The Scientists analyzed the active nutrients in the foods they thought were responsible for these positive findings, formed a theory, and then isolated the active nutrients and conducted controlled experiments. The results from these studies were all over the board, some positive, ref, a few negative, and most no change. And overall were not as positive as the earlier food studies.

The reality is that the Scientists made some faulty assumptions about the theories they thought were involved and the form and dosages of the nutrients. The anti-oxidant theory was one that became widely assumed. Left out of this theory is that anti-oxidants need to be balanced for proper functioning and disease protection. They are balanced in foods but easily unbalanced in supplements. And in the case of vitamin E, other vital forms were left out that limited positive results. Vitamin E as alpha tocopherol needs gamma tocopherol for proper prostate health. While the midterm results of the SELECT study were correct, they missed the more important point that prostate protection needs both vitamin E forms instead of just the alpha tocopherol form as used in the vast majority of vitamin disease research. Article on SELECT study. NCI reference on SELECT here.

Some years ago, Dr Edgar Miller was involved in another meta study about Vitamin E. Dr Miller announced the results of this study at a media circus with the FDA on board. Every major newspaper in the World carried the report the next day with the headline; "Vitamin E will kill you"

In this meta review study, Dr Miller looked at over 3000 studies on Vitamin E and eliminated 2981 of them. One of the 19 left, the WAVE study, contained a warning from its Authors that the results should not be used by any other research since the results were so far separated from any past study. But this did not stop Dr MIller from using these results together with the other 18 studies. It was only by including the WAVE study results that Dr Miller was able to get a significant negative finding for higher dose Vitamin E increasing the death rate. One interesting point about this study is that there was no mention of what caused the deaths or if they were in any way connected to the functions of vitamin E. After the media circus reported that high dosage, over 400 IU, Vitamin E would "kill" you, other Scientists worked the same numbers without the WAVE results and could not arrive at the same negative statistics. Even using the WAVE results with different Scientific methods, they could not duplicate Dr Miller's adverse findings. The talk behind the scenes in the Scientific community was that Dr Miller's meta study was faulty and without proper scientific merit. The Public never saw this side of the story.

OF INTEREST: One of the 19 studies, CHAOS, found a 71% reduction in second heart attacks during the study period in the Vitamin E group. Plus, now can be added this new report on the positive overall cancer reduction of multiple-vitamins found in this study. Plus this one. How can these positive results be discounted by Dr Miller?

Back to the article above, Vitamins a Waste of Money, here is the link to the first of 3 studies used to decide this view. These were meta studies in that they just looked at other studies and attempted to compare them together. Here is the last line in the Discussion: "We identified 2 multivitamin trials that both found lower overall cancer incidence in men (19, 21). Both trials were methodologically sound, but the lack of an effect for women (albeit in 1 trial), the borderline significance in men in both trials, and the lack of any effect on CVD in either study makes it difficult to conclude that multivitamin supplementation is beneficial."

Multivitamin researchers say "case is closed" after studies find no health benefits

How can the authors of this report discount the lower overall cancer incidence in men from the two trials? To the men not coming down with cancer who took vitamins, those vitamins were surely not a WASTE of MONEY. 

Yes, there is a very serious gap in the theories Scientists use to study vitamins. Ineffective forms (missing Vitamin E members, or synthetic E and beta carotene, lack of vitamin C family, incorrect calcium to magnesium ratio), faulty dosages (too high or too low), incomplete theories (anti-oxidant balance, and lack of synergistic nutrients, like vitamin K needed with vitamin D for bone health). These are the real issues discussed on the articles in this website to explain the seemingly controversial findings from vitamin research.

TAKE AWAY: A Doctor wanted to find out which forms of vitamin E were deficient in heart patients. To his amazement, alpha tocopherol, the only form allowed to be called vitamin E and the form almost always used in cardiovascular disease studies, was NOT often deficient. It was nearly the same in both healthy and people with heart disease. It was gamma tocopherol that was lower in heart patients. Now, if vitamin E levels as alpha tocopherol are the same in heart disease patients and healthy people, why would one expect vitamin E was an issue and that taking more vitamin E as alpha tocopherol would help? Some logic! It does help in studies were vitamin E alpha tocopherol levels measured low.

The more likely scenario is that the Scientists thought heart patients must need extra vitamin E to achieve greater anti-oxidant levels. BUT, did they consider anti-oxidant load balance! The studies early on with the form of vitamin E tested showed this did not help much. So why did the Scientists keep using the same theory for future studies? Is it time to change the theory and use the protocol Mother Nature offers with all 8 vitamin E family members. This reference (conclusion* copiede below) shows anti-inflammatory properties greater from mixed E complex than just alpha tocopherol. In fact, high intake of just supplemental alpha tocopherol suppresses the levels of the other vital E factors that arrived in food.

*"Natural vitamin E consists of four different tocopherol and four different tocotrienol homologues (α, β, γ, δ) that all have antioxidant activity. However, recent data indicate that the different vitamin E homologues also have biological activity unrelated to their antioxidant activity. In this review, we discuss the anti-inflammatory properties of the two major forms of vitamin E, α-tocopherol (αT)(alpha) and γ-tocopherol (γT) (gamma), and discuss the potential molecular mechanisms involved in these effects. While both tocopherols exhibit anti-inflammatory activity in vitro and in vivo, supplementation with mixed (γT-enriched) tocopherols seems to be more potent than supplementation with αT alone. This may explain the mostly negative outcomes of the recent large-scale interventional chronic disease prevention trials with αT and thus warrants further investigation."

Update on Monday, December 13, 2021 at 9:16AM by Team RightWay

Article Evaluation:   Supplements: A scorecard - Harvard Health

This is a very new review and while it has some good information, certain missing points are needed to add clarity to picture created. Return soon.