106 replies to this topic

[nowayout]

Unfortunately the words "research", "paper", and "study" carry too much weight. People who are able need to look at these things with a critical eye and when they discover a fatal error due to the paper completely missing the bigger picture, they need to let it solidify in their brains to counteract the fact that their mind knows it is a peer-reviewed paper by really smart people and a massive media supports the findings. Even after seeing how absurd the echinacea paper was, I still found myself believing less in echinacea. It took a couple of years, but now I am free of the propaganda. Once the media presses a paper along for the ride, it's hard to immune yourself from it. For those who can't critically review the papers due to lack of skill or time, it's a lost cause.

Maybe, but where is the actual research justifying your high intakes then? I would say that you have it the wrong way around - there is vastly more propaganda and poppycock promoting supplements than the other way around. It takes more than believing (your word) in something for it to be true. Challenges to people's cherished beliefs in this area are automatically denounced as a conspiracy of the medical-pharmaceutical-media complex.

[Happy Gringo]

As it seems that we don't know how all of the interactions of antioxidants and exercise fit together, I try to take them either 6 hours before or 4 hours after exercise. I understand what zawy's point is (mostly, although it takes me a while to work through the studies) and I wonder if as we get older and possibly less able to deal with the stress, if it is better to reduce the initial stress as maybe we lose the ability to repair it fully? That might mean that for older people, antioxidants are a good idea before exercise?

[nowayout]

As it seems that we don't know how all of the interactions of antioxidants and exercise fit together, I try to take them either 6 hours before or 4 hours after exercise. I understand what zawy's point is (mostly, although it takes me a while to work through the studies) and I wonder if as we get older and possibly less able to deal with the stress, if it is better to reduce the initial stress as maybe we lose the ability to repair it fully? That might mean that for older people, antioxidants are a good idea before exercise?

Not necessarily. This small study suggests that endogenous antioxidant capacity can be maintained in older men by exercise.

Physical activity, plasma antioxidant capacity, and endothelium-dependent vasodilation in young and older men.
Franzoni F, Ghiadoni L, Galetta F, Plantinga Y, Lubrano V, Huang Y, Salvetti G, Regoli F, Taddei S, Santoro G, Salvetti A. Department of Internal Medicine, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy. f.franzoni@int.med.unipi.it

BACKGROUND: Sedentary aging is associated with oxidative stress and endothelial dysfunction. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between long-term physical activity, plasma antioxidant status, and conduit artery endothelial function in young and older healthy men. METHODS: In young (n = 16) and older athletes (n = 16) and in matched healthy sedentary subjects, endothelium-dependent flow-mediated dilation (FMD) and endothelium-independent response to glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), 400 microg, were measured in the brachial artery from high-resolution ultrasonography. Plasma malondialdehyde (MDA) and antioxidant capacity as total oxyradical scavenging capacity (TOSC) were also evaluated. RESULTS: We found that FMD was lower (< or =0.01) in sedentary older subjects (2.3% +/- 1.0%) as compared with older athletes (5.3% +/- 3.2%) and both sedentary (5.4% +/- 2.0%) and athletically trained (6.1% +/- 3.2%) young subjects. Sedentary older subjects showed higher (P < or = .05) MDA levels and lower (P < .0001) plasma antioxidant capacity as compared with the other subgroups, whereas in older athletes MDA levels and antioxidant capacity were similar to those observed in the young subgroups. In the whole group, FMD, but not GTN, was negatively related to age (r = -0.31, P < .05) and directly related (P < or = .01) to VO2max (r = 0.49) and TOSC against peroxyl (r = 0.69) and hydroxyl radicals (r = 0.53). In the multivariate analysis, TOSC against peroxyl radicals resulted as the most significant predictor of FMD (R2 = 0.60; P = .003). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that regular physical activity is associated with preserved antioxidant defenses and endothelial function in older individuals.

[zawy]

Maybe, but where is the actual research justifying your high intakes then? [....] are automatically denounced as a conspiracy of the medical-pharmaceutical-media complex.

What research supports my contention that people should take 4,000 mg vit C/day? Read Pauling's 1986 "How to Live Longer and Feel Better" and Stone's 1972 "The Healing Factor: Vitamin C against Disease" (online: http://www.vitamincf...tion.org/stone/ ). Then use common sense. The following numbers are adjust for 70 kg body weight: primates recommend dose is over 2 g/d. Guinea pigs suggested dosage is about 2 g/d. If you ate a wide variety of raw, fresh fruits and vegetables to get 2500 cals/day, you would get 2.3 g/day of vitamin C (Pauling p81), if you are the average of all other mammals on planet earth, you sacrifice 1.7% of your daily glucose calories to generate 10 g/day. By having an advanced vitamin-C conservation system, we gained a large evolutionary advantage by not sacrificing this 1.7 % of our food calories, as long as we ate a lot of raw, fresh, low-sugar fruits and vegetables.

The above observations provied a very powerful "theoretical argument". To me, it as good as an ideal study that would follow 30,000 people for 70 years on 200 mg/d, 1,000 mg/d and 4,000 mg/day. But what we have are large studies using at most 1 g/day for 10 years, and a bunch piddling studies at 200 mg/day. You can think a lot about complex and mostly useless studies, but they will never compare to the observations above.

> 1.5 g/day reduces kidney stones by 50%. 10 g/d provides much better pregnancy outcomes (my 2 g/day wife: 10.7 pound baby, 22.2 inches, natural birth, with a lot of work but not much pain) She's 5'8" and I'm 5'9". Lots of tissue requires lots of vitamin C. 10 g/d tripled the life expectancy (for example 18 months instead of 6 months) of terminal cancer patients who did not undergo chemo (Pauling/Cameron work that has been questioned). I.V. doses reversing cancer (recent N.I.H. comments). 200 mg/day did not help hayfever. 500 mg did not help asthma. 1 g/d helped 50% hayfever. 2.25 g/day helped 75%. Personally, I pretty much never breathed through my nose from hayfever nearly year-round until I started > 4 mg/d. Hayfever is much worse during a child's growing spurt because they are low on vit C from generating too much new tissue. You can't imagine how much suffering could have been alleviated if this 1979 study had been promoted. 1 g reduces insulin needs by 10 units, making 10 g/d enough to get at least 50% of diabetic patients off insulin. Patients with cholesterol 350 mg/dL took 3 g/d vit C and showed a 20% reduction in cholesterol. 10 g/d spread out would have shown more. People with cholesterol 260 mg/dL showed a 10% reduction on 3 g/d. 50% fewer heart attacks in men in the largest study for those getting over 1 g/day. Most of this is just from glancing at Pauling's 1986 book. Much more can be found in Stone and not all of Klenner is excessive. Do you have references that can contradict any of this? (besides the cancer, I'm skeptical of that unless it's I.V.). Notice I didn't mention colds. That's because my experience is that it doesn't work as well as zicam, echinacea, and vit D, but maybe that is because I already take a lot of C and there's not much room for benefit. 4 g dose greatly reversing heat stress on several occasions on my 60 yr old mother. 4 g dose often making me feel better and think more clearly, which does not occur as strongly with 2 g dose.

It isn't impressive that I know a lot about vitamin C. What's impressive is that others don't know. Most of this information was in Stone's 1972 book, based on research that is 40 to 60 years old. To see how ignorant and misguided today's research is, it's a good place to start.

OK, on you other point, conspiracy theories. I do not call seeking profit by all legal means necessary a "conspiracy". Influencing the government to the detriment of citizens is perfectly legal. I only call it unethical when a research group at a University makes sure not to publish anything that would risk government/pharmaceutical funding. A researcher may also sacrifice common-sense ways of setting up a study in an attempt to contradict popular previously-held beliefs, knowing that the results will be meaningless to the big picture, but also knowing that it could make big headlines that your department head will love.

Imagine setting up a study to test a cold remedy but requiring 3 out of 5 symptoms to be present before treatment begins (cough, headache, sneezing, sore throat, fever). Is the cold not already fully involved and not likely to respond to any immune-enhancing compound? Then you leave out of the press release that there was a 50% reduction in subsequent colds in the treated group. Or let's say you take pictures of cartilage in a low dose and high dose group, choosing the pictures that will best support your abstract conclusion, knowing that what you're saying in the abstract and press release as "beneficial to joints" is what killed 20% of the subjects. Or let's say you see that a 1,000 mg Vit C dose has 4 times more vitamin C in the blood 6 hours later than the "steady-state" 24 hours later, but your conclusions is that no one can benefit from more than 200 mg/day because 200 mg result in the same levels at 24 hours. These are just the ones that made big headlines that I looked into enough to get the full paper. The tricks, conscious and unconcious, that are used to draw surprising and media-worthy conclusions should not be underestimated. Any research paper that is accompanied by a press release from the university or government institution, should make your warning bells go off. The purpose of the press release from the public relations departments of these institutions is to communicate what they think are news-worthy items. I suspect the purpose of the PR departments is to raise public image of the institution. I also suspect that researches that are able to feed something good to PR departments are somehow credited. So there's the completely legal "conspiracy" I allege.

Edited by zawy, 22 May 2009 - 02:52 PM.

[nowayout]

The above observations provied a very powerful "theoretical argument". To me, it as good as an ideal study that would follow 30,000 people for 70 years on 200 mg/d, 1,000 mg/d and 4,000 mg/day. But what we have are large studies using at most 1 g/day for 10 years, and a bunch piddling studies at 200 mg/day. You can think a lot about complex and mostly useless studies, but they will never compare to the observations above.

Unfortunately, as most scientists find out pretty soon in their careers, the vast majority of plausible theoretical arguments are flat out wrong. As we know, there are now some pretty strong theoretical arguments against megadosing antioxidants, and even a growing corpus of (admittedly imperfect) research studies backing these arguments. So you are ultimately choosing to believe the theoretical arguments you want to believe based on your prejudices, and choosing not to look for weaknesses in the arguments that you favor. I prefer an approach that admits that the jury is still out and that in the meantime prudence and caution is needed.

I used to be an antioxidant megadoser for many years, starting in the 80s, based on Pauli's crapola and the supplement industry's propaganda (which is as bad as or worse than that of the pharmaceutical industry, which is at leat regulated). I finally stopped when I realized the evidence was just not there and was starting to swing the other way (towards harm rather than benefit) and when I was having some serious recovery problems from exercise. Even then, it was difficult, though, letting go of my antioxidants - on some primitive level I was expecting to drop dead. If that's not brainwashing I don't know what is...

Edited by andre, 22 May 2009 - 03:29 PM.

[zawy]

As we know, there are now some pretty strong theoretical arguments against megadosing antioxidants, and even a growing corpus of (admittedly imperfect) research studies backing these arguments. [...] I finally stopped when I realized the evidence was just not there and was starting to swing the other way (towards harm rather than benefit)

In this thread and another, I have discredited in excellent detail almost every article you and others have cared to cite and no one has given counter arguments to my points. Did you have other references I am not aware of, or am I tossing pearls before swine?

[nowayout]

As we know, there are now some pretty strong theoretical arguments against megadosing antioxidants, and even a growing corpus of (admittedly imperfect) research studies backing these arguments. [...] I finally stopped when I realized the evidence was just not there and was starting to swing the other way (towards harm rather than benefit)

In this thread and another, I have discredited in excellent detail almost every article you and others have cared to cite...

Oh, I think you are exaggerating just a tad. And in support of megadosing the best you have been able to do has been to cite a couple of books of popular fiction. Even if I am just a swine, it is going to take a little bit more than that to impress me.

Edited by andre, 22 May 2009 - 04:19 PM.

[Happy Gringo]

Not trying to get off-subject here, but I just found an interesting article on Taurine. It supposedly improves performance and acts as an antioxidant. I have the purely subjective experience that I can push harder in a workout after drinking a sugar-free Battery+ which has 1300 mg. of Taurine.
Anyway, would this be evidence that not all antioxidants have the blunting effect on exercise adaptation?

http://www.ergo-log....inerunning.html

Edited by Happy Gringo, 22 May 2009 - 04:45 PM.

[nowayout]

Not trying to get off-subject here, but I just found an interesting article on Taurine. It supposedly improves performance and acts as an antioxidant. I have the purely subjective experience that I can push harder in a workout after drinking a sugar-free Battery+ which has 1300 mg. of Taurine.
Anyway, would this be evidence that not all antioxidants have the blunting effect on exercise adaptation?

http://www.ergo-log....inerunning.html

It does not appear that the study investigated exercise adaptation, though, so it is probably not directly relevant. It is interesting, though.

Taurine has a huge number of functions in the body unrelated to its property of being an antioxidant. Among others, it is essential for normal muscle function and depletion is known to lead to a reduction in exercise capacity. I think it is doubtful that this effect has anything to do with its antioxidant properties.

Edited by andre, 22 May 2009 - 04:59 PM.

[zawy]

... a couple of books of popular fiction.

Their references are a lot better than yours. Don't you have any argument other than insulting authors who cite their sources? You toss out primate information as if humans were not primates. You toss out a natural diet as if it's perfectly natural to eat genetically-modified sweetened corn out of a can. What do you consider an adequate amount of vitamin C for humans, and does any other animal on the planet, adjusted for size, get less than what you recommend for humans?

Edited by zawy, 22 May 2009 - 05:08 PM.

[nowayout]

You toss out primate information as if humans were not primates. You toss out a natural diet as if it's perfectly natural to eat genetically-modified sweetened corn out of a can.

You are confusing me with someone else.

[zawy]

You toss out primate information as if humans were not primates. You toss out a natural diet as if it's perfectly natural to eat genetically-modified sweetened corn out of a can.

You are confusing me with someone else.

I wrote that animal and natural diet data are strong theoretical arguments for my position and you replied "the vast majority of plausible theoretical arguments are flat out wrong." I think you're unable to keep up with the conversation, getting confused, and entering the twilight zone.

[nowayout]

You toss out primate information as if humans were not primates. You toss out a natural diet as if it's perfectly natural to eat genetically-modified sweetened corn out of a can.

You are confusing me with someone else.

I wrote that animal and natural diet data are strong theoretical arguments for my position and you replied "the vast majority of plausible theoretical arguments are flat out wrong."

My statement is entirely accurate. You are going to have to do better than cite plausible theories and extrapolations. You do know that the great majority of drugs with solid theoretical support that pass animal testing fail in human trials, don't you? If plausible theories did any good, cancer and heart disease would long be a thing of the past, you and I would still have all our hair, and Pauling would still be with us.

By the way, I eat a pretty healthy and natural diet with more fruits and vegetables than was available during 99.9% percent of human evolution. Popping an additional 4g of vitamin C can be called a lot of things, but don't call it natural.

Edited by andre, 22 May 2009 - 06:28 PM.

[zawy]

Again, what do you consider an adequate daily amount of vitamin C? Does any animal on planet Earth get less than what you are recommending for humans?

To more accurate, I cited observations in o humans, animals, and natural food, not theory. The only "extrapolated theory" part is that primate data and raw food data applies to humans. To compare drugs made at any temp and pressure to DNA-based compounds formed under ambient temp and pressure is absurd. OK, that's just a statement based on evolution, so let me give you observations to back it up. 1) About 5 deaths per year are reported from supplements. About 160,000 are reported from pharmaceuticals when taken as prescribed, the 4th or 5th leading cause of death. 2) Enormous amounts of effort have to go into making sure the pharmaceuticals do not interact in a catastrophic way, and yet bad interactions never happen with nutritional supplements. 3) gram-level quantities of all nutritional supplements I can think of are very safe. You would have to nearly fill your stomach with most any of them before you suffered a temporary ill effect. Salicylic acid is the most toxic natural nutritional supplement I can think of right now, comparable to aspirin and being deadly at about 25 grams. I'm sure there are some natural stimulants and metals that could be as dangerous. Now compare that to the deaths each from taking much smaller smaller amounts of drugs.

"I eat a pretty healthy and natural diet with more fruits and vegetables than was available during 99.9% percent of human evolution. "

Umm, what exactly do you think people ate before the agricultural revolution? Meat was scarce and grains were rare.

[corrective edit: after thinking about it, I can't say that i know meat for sure so scarce. I believe there could have been a shift at some point well before the agricultural revolution from a primate-like diet to a scavenger and hunter diet for many sub-populations]

Edited by zawy, 22 May 2009 - 07:29 PM.

[nowayout]

To compare drugs made at any temp and pressure to DNA-based compounds formed under ambient temp and pressure is absurd.

About 5 deaths per year are reported from supplements.

bad interactions never happen with nutritional supplements.

gram-level quantities of all nutritional supplements I can think of are very safe.

I guess I'll let Kismet or someone respond to this nonsense if they like. You are exhausting.

Edited by andre, 22 May 2009 - 07:33 PM.

[Dmitri]

As we know, there are now some pretty strong theoretical arguments against megadosing antioxidants, and even a growing corpus of (admittedly imperfect) research studies backing these arguments. [...] I finally stopped when I realized the evidence was just not there and was starting to swing the other way (towards harm rather than benefit)

In this thread and another, I have discredited in excellent detail almost every article you and others have cared to cite and no one has given counter arguments to my points. Did you have other references I am not aware of, or am I tossing pearls before swine?

Actually you ignored me when I posted a study that revealed how Alpha tocopherol could reduce other forms of E in the body and how even the life extension foundation has acknowledged that fact. Also, what's the point of continuing to discuss the issue if your extreme bias does not let you see past positive supplement studies? For many of the negative studies you blame it on pharmaceutical influence which in my opinion is nothing more than mere speculation or do you have proof? I asked you for long term studies and you showed none (on the top 5 supplement thread); at one point you even said the following:

"Concerning, positive references, I do not have any off hand that meet your criteria. My belief in these levels is based on a wide variety of trusted sources I have come across over the past 15 years. I can't summarize that, and none of them are conclusive. I just wanted to explain why I would not accept the kind of information others here are accepting at face value. But here are a couple you might like":

Then you posted three positive Vitamin E studies two of which used food sources not supplements.

[zawy]

Dmitri, I did not continue to argue the point as I believe excess vitamin E might not do much and may be even harmful without the proper proportions, as I stated in that thread. But let me review your references:

Summary of Dmtri's 4 references
1) 50 IU for 5 to 8 years showed no effect. No surprise there.
2) Unknown dose elevated risk of a heart defect in 100 cases out of 8,400 participents. Should the other 8,200 or so be deprived of vitamin E?
3) 400 IU/d in people mostly over 70 for an average of about 3.5 years showed no effect. No surprise there.
4) Trusted "pharmaceutical employees" to take 200 IU/d. Showed no effect. No surprise there.

OK, so eventhough we don't have a good study on vit E supplementation at 400 IU/d for 10 years in a group of people not at high risk of dying or who based their career on pharmaceuticals, I will concede that it may not do anything and may be harmful in certain types of heart disease. That's why I was only discussing vitamin C, but I acknowledge your correction to my statement that "no counterarguments concerning anti-oxidents in general were provided", when you had for vit E, and that I had not fully discussed them.

Boring details begin here.....

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/19286632

This is the israel group that did a meta-analysis of the same studies as the other meta-analysis study that was "anti-antioxidant". 50% of the deaths from both these meta-analysis come from the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study (ATBC) which showed no effect on 50 IU for 5 to 8 years. This is no surprise. I agree such a small dose is not likely to do anything, especially over 5 to 8 years. It was conducted by the NCI and Finland. This study is being recycled by 2 additional studies to support the "anti-antioxidant" idea, so I would be careful as to believing how many original references are being used to support the "vit E has no effect" idea.

http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16645413

This was your second link that showed an increase in deaths when studying 100 people with a specific heart problem. I couldn't find the dose in this.

http://news.bio-medi...-failure-209-1/

This was your 3rd reference HOPE and HOPE-TOO that showed no effect on 400 IU. Average age of participants was 70 and median followup was 7 years. However, at least 2/3 of the people who actually got sick or died must have been above 70 because there is a sudden increase in risk of death and disease the closer you get to the end. A 90 year old has something like a 50% chance of dying in the next 12 months. Median duration of followup for the entire group was 7 years, which indicates out of those who died, the average time of pill supplementation was 3.5 years. I would not expect 3.5 years of vitamin E in people mostly over the age of 70 would show any effect.

http://www.usatoday....nts-study_N.htm

This is the last reference of yours I saw. Seriously, why would they ask people who based their career on pharmaceuticals to test supplements and then not test their blood to actually see if they actually took them? I don't know if you live in the U.S. but back in 1997, doctors like this (over the age of 50) were RABIDLY against nutritional supplements, so I have no faith that they were compliant. It's 200 IU/day in physicians over the age of 50 (average age 65?), starting in 1997 and lasting 10 years.

[zawy]

Another problem with the last reference PHS II: they used synthetic vitamin E from BASF. Wiki cites BASF as being one of the largest sources of the 8-isomer all-rac which is properly called dl,dl,dl-tocopherol and is labeled incorrectly as dl-alpha-tocopherol. Only 1 of its 8 isomers is natural. The other 7 are not retained as well, about 70%. It's debatabe how much good they are doing. Wiki says older forms of the dl form were 50% d,d,d-alpha tocopherol and 50% l,d,d-alpha-tocopherol, so 50% used to be natural instead of the 12.5% in the PHS II study. Hopefully most everyone these days is taking the a mixed d form. I would guess that at most the synthetic E used was 50% active, providing 100 IU/day in terms of the natural vitamin E supplements sold today.

Edited by zawy, 23 May 2009 - 01:24 PM.

[nameless]

I think one point Andre was trying to make, which I agree with, is instead of trying to disprove negative studies, instead can you provide peer reviewed studies that show benefits for high dose antioxidants?

Are there any 4 gram+ vitamin C studies, where participants reduced risk of heart disease (or any disease)? I personally think it'd be really interesting to have a Pauling-style heart disease study -- still not sure why there hasn't been one after all of these years.

Same with vitamin E. What vitamin E studies have shown reduction in disease or mortality rates? There are some positive E studies, as I've read them... although whether they are accurate or improve mortality is up for debate. And there are negative studies too, of course.

Perhaps start a new thread for high dose C or E, or whatever antioxidant you wish to propose, with peer reviewed studies included? Theories can be interesting to discuss, but they are just that, theories. They require some sort of proof.

[VespeneGas]

I'm glad we have a dialog here, Zawy, and I appreciate your taking an unpopular position, but though Andre didn't respond adequately to your argument, i don't think he could have been expected to. You made reference to Pauling's book (which I don't have access to) and tell us to read Dr. Stone's book (a bit much to ask your opponent to read an entire book just to refute you) and extrapolated human requirements based on the requirements of closely related animals. I sympathize with the animal arguments, but I think a very important distinction must be made, which dimitri alluded to.

Consumption of nutrient X from diet |= consumption of nutrient X from supplement. Diets high in vitamin C are rich in fruits and vegetables, all of which contain a cornucopia of beneficial phytonutrients, many of which probably haven't even been discovered yet. Even Pauling himself recommended eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables in case they had nutrients that haden't been investigated yet. If, as you say, primates got over 2g/day from diet, why not just eat a good diet?

Also, as nameless, requested, please post those peer-reviewed studies to which you referred earlier so we can evaluate them, I'm sure you'll appreciate an unwillingness to take claims at face value. Because you are advocating megadosing dietary nutrients in pill form, which no other animal big or small relies upon, the burden of proof for their health benefits lies in your side of the debate.

[zawy]

I think reading the book is less of a task that what I was required to do to show the errors in the studies presented. If people don't believe me enough at this point to follow through with their own research, then more typing on my part will not help them.

Unless you're eating a good selection of raw fruits and vegetables that were frozen, then you're not going to get the 2 g/day. If you cook the plants or if they come out of a can, you're going to need supplements of at least water-based vitamins to achieve what you evolved to handle.

The errors and non-ideal nature of the studies make them hard to apply. Many of the prior studies looking at E and C in other ways are more accurate. We have no idea how much E or C was ingested in most of these studies that show no benefit. The larger the study, the less likely patients were monitored or cajoled well enough to insure compliance. In the case of the PHS they monitored them for 3 months and rejected 40% because of non-compliance. It does not appear anymore monitoring was conducted for the next 10 years.

Edited by zawy, 23 May 2009 - 08:33 PM.

[nameless]

I think reading the book is less of a task that what I was required to do to show the errors in the studies presented. If people don't believe me enough at this point to follow through with their own research, then more typing on my part will not help them.

The errors and non-ideal nature of the studies make them hard to apply. Many of the prior studies looking at E and C in other ways are more accurate. We have no idea how much E or C was ingested in most of these studies that show no benefit. The larger the study, the less likely patients were monitored or cajoled well enough to insure compliance. In the case of the PHS they monitored them for 3 months and rejected 40% because of non-compliance. It does not appear anymore monitoring was conducted for the next 10 years.

Asking everyone else to read a book to prove your statements is asking a bit much. I mean, if someone here makes a claim, such as: vitamin <whatever> = disease prevention, it's not unreasonable to ask them to post some peer-reviewed study links that demonstrate this. Asking them to read a book to back up these claims is unreasonable to me.

And I won't argue that some of the past studies are probably flawed, as perhaps some are. But disproving a negative doesn't necessarily equate to a positive.

Edited by nameless, 23 May 2009 - 09:00 PM.

[zawy]

OK, how about this:

1) 2008: "Our findings in this meta-analysis suggest that an increase in dietary intake of antioxidant vitamins has encouraging prospects for possible CHD prevention."
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/18277182

2) 2006: "RR for > 400 IU/day versus none = 0.29 [70% fewer advanced prostate cancers in smokers if they are currently taking >400 IU E]...RR for > or = 10 years of use versus none = 0.30 .... vitamin E supplementation in male smokers and beta-carotene supplementation in men with low dietary beta-carotene intakes were associated with reduced risk of this disease."
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16478743

3) 2004 "The results suggest a reduced incidence of major CHD events at high supplemental vitamin C intakes. "
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/15585762
(full text there)
"vitamin E was significantly related to the incidence of all major CHD events among the women (RR = 0.76; 95% CI: 0.65, 0.96; "
Here's a good chart from this one, see bottom where >700 mg/d vit C as supplements had lowest mortality rate, significantly better than the lower doses and the only level reaching statistical significance. Since no trend is seen until the high levels, 700 mg/d would be an absolute mininum and support for my idea that 4 g/d might be the best for the average person.
http://www.ajcn.org/...ll/80/6/1508/T4

Does anyone have any data that negates this increase in lifespan in 18,000 people taking > 700 mg/d vit C as a supplement?

[nameless]

OK, how about this:

1) 2008: "Our findings in this meta-analysis suggest that an increase in dietary intake of antioxidant vitamins has encouraging prospects for possible CHD prevention."
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/18277182

2) 2006: "RR for > 400 IU/day versus none = 0.29 [70% fewer advanced prostate cancers in smokers if they are currently taking >400 IU E]...RR for > or = 10 years of use versus none = 0.30 .... vitamin E supplementation in male smokers and beta-carotene supplementation in men with low dietary beta-carotene intakes were associated with reduced risk of this disease."
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/16478743

3) 2004 "The results suggest a reduced incidence of major CHD events at high supplemental vitamin C intakes. "
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/15585762
(full text there)

Does anyone have any data that negates this increase in lifespan in 18,000 people taking > 700 mg/d vit C as a supplement?

Thanks for posting the studies. The last study may be significant, not so sure about the other two, as they may be muddled by dietary intakes (and smoking) rather than supplement intake.

The vitamin C data in the last study is interesting. However, it still doesn't mean megadoses of C (several gram range) provides a benefit. I won't say megadoses of C couldn't reduce risks further, but really, you are just theorizing it would without studies as proof. If that study is accurate, it just means 700mg+ shows a benefit, not that 4 grams/daily does. Do you know of any multi-gram vitamin C studies (even old ones) where disease prevention/risk reduction was demonstrated?

And as for decreasing lifespan:

The only study I found to increase mortality (although admittedly I didn't search that hard) was a vitamin C/diabetes study
http://www.ncbi.nlm....5?dopt=Abstract

I found that study at the Linus Pauling Institute, where they theorize the negative results may be due to genetic differences --
http://lpi.oregonsta...amins/vitaminC/

They recommend 400mg daily, total from diet + supplements, for most individuals.

Edited by nameless, 24 May 2009 - 05:55 PM.

[zawy]

The vit C supplements in post-menopausal diabetic women used about 20 adjustments to the data before a correlation was seen. This is known to cause error even when done right. The laughably "high" vitamin C group (>300 mg) had by far the most vit E intake, a lot more exercise, more folate, and less fats and trans-fats. All these were used in the adjustments to penalize the vit C group. The only adjustment that was significant that would work to vit C advantage is that the higher vitamin C groups ate significantly more.

A web site had this to say concerning that study: "The study is further refuted by a recent report from Walter Willet's group at Harvard University in 85,118 women from the Nurses' Health Study (2). Women taking vitamin C supplements had a significant lower risk of incident coronary heart disease (CHD) than women who did not take supplements. The risk reduction was 27 % in the highest quintile of vitamin C intake (median 704 mg/d) comprising vitamin C supplement users only, compared to the lowest quintile (median 70 mg/d). Interestingly, vitamin C from the diet alone (median 209 mg/d) in this well-nourished cohort did not reduce CHD risk. The inverse association between vitamin C supplement use and risk of CHD was even stronger among women with diabetes (-43 %). This is corroborated by previous reports from the NHANES I study (3) and human intervention studies where vitamin C supplementation reduced blood pressure (4), improved arterial function in type 2 diabetes (5) and reduced symptoms of pre-eclampsia (6)."

Your statement that the Pauling Institute supports 400 mg/d is incorrect. It supports "at least 400 mg/d". Pauling broke off ties with the institute due to their position on vitamin C and other things, but was unable to legally stop them from using his name. That was nearly 20 years ago.

Edited by zawy, 24 May 2009 - 07:44 PM.

[nameless]

The reasons for the negative vitamin C/diabetes results were thought to be genetically based:

http://www.ncbi.nlm....0?dopt=Abstract

You can argue that it was yet another flawed study, if you wish.

And I didn't dispute the results from the one study where 700mg+ of C showed a benefit. I just said it didn't prove 4 grams/daily provided any benefit. And you are right, I mistakenly said the Linus Pauling Institute recommended 400mg/daily, but they said 400mg+ daily. But I wouldn't infer this means 4 grams daily either.

I don't mean (or want) to sound argumentative, but none of these studies deal with multi-gram doses of vitamin C, which is what you are proposing. To back up this claim, you'd need some studies using those doses.

[zawy]

You can argue that it was yet another flawed study, if you wish.

No, that study looks interesting, and I couldn't find see a flaw after briefly looking at it.

Of course I do not have a study investigating 4 g/day. 2 g/d will probably get 80% of the benefit in 50% of the people. Again, just my estimation based on all available information. > 700 mg/d is basically a "gram-level" dose. Since we do not have a study on 4 g/d, an estimation based on available studies and a risk-reward estimation has to be done. I pay $10 per kg as a powder in drinks, so the money and hassle cost is not an issue. I do not see any risks, especially since I am not a postmenopausal woman with diabetes and a specific gene. I have seen lost of reports of there being benefit to > 1 g/day as partially detailed in a previous post, not to mention no benefit was seen until they went above 700 mg/d which indicates the peak of the upside-down U curve is well above 700 mg/d. I expect harm at 10,000 mg/d in some people. I know animals generally sacrifice 1.7% of their food to get 10,000 mg/d in their blood and that I have about 50% effective absorption. So I'll try to get 1/5 of what most other animals get and settle for what is optimum in primates and guinea pigs.

[Dmitri]

You can argue that it was yet another flawed study, if you wish.

No, that study looks interesting, and I couldn't find see a flaw after briefly looking at it.

Of course I do not have a study investigating 4 g/day. 2 g/d will probably get 80% of the benefit in 50% of the people. Again, just my estimation based on all available information. > 700 mg/d is basically a "gram-level" dose. Since we do not have a study on 4 g/d, an estimation based on available studies and a risk-reward estimation has to be done. I pay $10 per kg as a powder in drinks, so the money and hassle cost is not an issue. I do not see any risks, especially since I am not a postmenopausal woman with diabetes and a specific gene. I have seen lost of reports of there being benefit to > 1 g/day as partially detailed in a previous post, not to mention no benefit was seen until they went above 700 mg/d which indicates the peak of the upside-down U curve is well above 700 mg/d. I expect harm at 10,000 mg/d in some people. I know animals generally sacrifice 1.7% of their food to get 10,000 mg/d in their blood and that I have about 50% effective absorption. So I'll try to get 1/5 of what most other animals get and settle for what is optimum in primates and guinea pigs.

But you see your recommendations are nothing more than speculations. That one study showed 700 mg had a benefit but you can't infer that taking double or triple will increase the benefits. Too much of anything can be harmful, even drinking too much water can kill you. We need studies that show 4g/day is helpful. Though if I recall you did show a primate study on this which I liked considering we are more closely related to primates than mice which are usually used for these type of studies.

[nameless]

Of course I do not have a study investigating 4 g/day. 2 g/d will probably get 80% of the benefit in 50% of the people. Again, just my estimation based on all available information. >

Are there any studies at the 1.5-2 gram level? Only study somewhere in that ballpark that I recall was a cold prevention study (I think). Did Pauling reference any decent human studies, perhaps even if not peer-reviewed, using multi-gram dosages?

And I understand your logic behind megadosing C, even if I don't agree with it necessarily. The primate info could be pertinent. Although without human studies to back it up, who really knows?

There is some data to suggest dosing in the 250mg-1 gram range could provide certain benefits (cataract, C-reactive protein reduction, perhaps less heart disease). The heart disease studies are iffy though... a lot of differing results.

I never looked over the studies themselves in detail (just abstracts) but do they state the type of dosing that was done for vitamin C? Due to it's short half-life, a single dose may not provide a lot of benefits at 500mg-1gram. But multiple dosing, or an extended release C, could potentially give different results. Just curious if various studies used different dosing methods and perhaps that played a role in some of the study outcomes?

Edited by nameless, 24 May 2009 - 11:52 PM.

[zawy]

I have not looked in detail at any studies that supply over 1 gram per day, except for cancer. Most of them are old, so even after looking at them, I would have to do a search for things since then that were checking their results. For example asthma does not appear to benefit if you look at new studies, but I don't know if they were using doses as high. There are non-published things Klenner's largely qualitative comments on 10 g/d in pregnant women and Pauling's comment in 1992ish that he had seen 6 g/d vit C and 6 g/d lysine reverse angina in about 3 weeks. I did on a search on Pauling's friend in this Matthias Rath and lysine and saw about 30 papers in the last 3 years in reputable journals with his research group using lysine, proline, arginine, ascorbic acid, and green tea extract mixtures in a wide variety of cancers with "virtual total inhibition of MMP-2 at 1000 microg/mL". I didn't monitor my wife's vit C intake exactly, but it was at least 2 g/d. The doctor and hospital staff said they don't see a 10 lb 10 oz, 22.5 inch baby, normal delivery (non-diabetic, not quite 9 months) except for once every few months. They do 3,000 per month. I wasn't able to confirm that.

The heart disease studies don't do not have a good population over 1 g/d. There was kidney stone paper by harvard a long time ago that said >1.5 g/d reduced kidney stones by 50% (diet plus supplements?) but may not have made statistical significance. Here is the one showing 3g/d lowered 350 mg/d cholesterol cases by 20% http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/6811478 (no useful abstract or anything, but that's the reference)

I think it's best to get at least a natural dose of vitamin C which is 2 g/d on a fresh and raw fruit and vegetable diet. I don't buy the argument that it has to be in a food matrix because pharmaceuticals, hydroponic gardening, and studies on astronauts show that if you get the chemicals there, they get utilized even if not at 100% efficiency (like sugars/insulin helping carnitine transport into muscle). Most of the non-vitamin goodies of fruits and vegetables remain even if they are not fresh and raw (today's diet).

Edited by zawy, 25 May 2009 - 12:06 PM.