Ok, if one thing is most certainly right in that article is that people are passionate about their vitamins as evidenced here. anyway, I posted that article because it had good pointers, a decent review of the science, unfortunately (my own fault) it was interpreted as me claiming there can be no benefit from vitamins period. let's go back to civilised intelligent discussion mode, ok? so..
not enough evidence that you would start a thread questioning their efficacy.
but enough evidence that you would ingest them on a daily basis...
[wis]
I said I view them as low-risk gamble, but not expecting much benefit but even less harm (as I consider my dosing reasonable). Correcting deficiencies definately helps, I am not just sure how widespread deficiencies are especially in my demography but I still take it as a little insurance. That might change. Despite you claims, the vitamin efficacy-safety debate is far from settled, with the overall pretty poor track record they have, especially in terms of efficacy. I'd say pretty much everytime they have worked it is because of deficiency, not a dose-response or anything like.
it IS the reason in most cases... perfect example are the recent studies on vitamin E, pro-A, and glucosamine... all of which came back with negative results due to the fact that the studies did not pay attention to proper isomers & chirality.
flood people with synthetic alpha tocopherol and they die sooner... big surprise there.
What I expressed poorly is that I actually do consider what you are saying being plausible explanation to the pretty much frequent failings of supplemental vitamin & mineral trials. There is some initial mechanistic evidence for, say, gamma-tocopherol also being important. However, I think it is pretty dogmatic to assume that OBVIOUSLY the null results are explained by not providing proper forms of vitamins when you actually have virtually no trials actually showing that the supplemental forms of vitamins in their proper forms still makes a difference one way or another.
What if it really is that extra antioxidants actually do more harm than good, say perhaps by messing up the the signalling systems that use ROS as a messenger, that is actually a fairly plausible theory explaining why antioxidant trials have many times had INCREASED mortalities?
you should probably stop eating food if you believe that. what studies showed that antioxidents increase mortality (besides the e/a ones which were obviously flawed)?
Again you assume that it was the poor forms of vitamins which were the cause but you actually have fairly little data on that, although it is possible.
Anyway something that comes to mind was the BMJ 1999 review of three vitamin C RCTs that showed an overall increased 8%mortality (did not see any mentioning of that in the article you provided scottl?).
http://www.pubmedcen...bmedid=10463913To be perfectly honest, I don't think there sure ain't compelling evidence of dangers of antioxidants but there sure ain't evidence of their efficacy either.
However, while I certainly should not stop eating antioxidants, there is evidence of what amounts of dietary antioxidants one should consume and they are called the DRIs, which actually have fairly strong scientific backing behind them, believe or not. I think previously antioxidants were assumed harmless at worst. However, if you get over the simplistic version Harman free radical theory of aging, the question whether excess of exogenous antioxidants might actually do more harm than good becomes a relevant one, as there *might* be some clinical indication of it also. I'l quote a message by trh001 on the CRsociety list today:
....Bruce Ames addressed this important point decades ago.
I recall a late 80's lecture where he encouraged the audience to consider
the biological significance of oxidation-reduction reactions (REDOX) in the
body, as tightly controlled information flow, and exogenous antioxidants per
se, as not likely to be effective unless frank deficiency was present, or
some metabolic lesion unique to the individual was at issue.
I (and some others) are taking this thinking a little further and saying not only are the supps possibly useless, but actually forcefully flooding the body with them could actually mess up that valuabe ROS information flow.
Your position is based on a convinient way to explain the frequently failing supplemental vitamin trials but really, you just DO NOT have DATA backing your claim.
common sense picks up where infant science leaves off...
again using vitamin E as an example.... nature makes 8 isomers... always together, always in a balance. scientists isolate 1 isomer, produce it synthetically, and apply it in huge doses ... and people die.
BIG SURPRISE THERE
if that is what you consider good science... then i just dont know.
the PARAMOUNT importance of isomers and chirality...you dont need clinical trials to prove it, nature already has.
You don't need clinical trials to prove because nature has? Oh, come one, that is a pretty lame argument.
I don't think it is as simple as you make it sound. Always in balance, you are aware that the ratios of alpha-tocopherols to gamma tocopherols wary drastically accross plant sources?:
http://www.scienceda...60303110923.htmtwo most common forms of vitamin E –– one [gamma] is found primarily in plants like corn and soybeans, while the other [alpha] is found in olive oil, almonds, sunflower seeds and mustard greens – affect the health of animal cells. The main difference between the two forms is a slight variation in their chemical structures.
http://www.scienceda...41219211237.htmScientists have been studying vitamin E for more than three-quarters of a century, but most efforts have focused largely on alpha-tocopherol, one of eight known forms in the vitamin's family. Alpha-tocopherol was found early on to have the most beneficial effects on laboratory animals fed diets deficient in vitamin E, and also is the major form found in body tissues. For these reasons, it has been nearly the only form of the vitamin to be included in most manufactured nutritional supplements.
The latter article is pro-multipe tocopherols BTW.
Regarding the first article, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that while gamma-tocopherol is the most common version in American diet, yet it is not so in the European diet.
If it makes anyone feel any better, I take a 50% Ortho-Core daily.
its disgustingly hipocritical that you would make a thread like this, then go knock back ortho-core... which contains a mirade of substances which from your point of view contain 'no evidence' as to their efficacy.
Well again, the reason I take Ortho-Core is because, partly, there is some preliminary evidence (but not in form of actual trials) for what you consider ubiqutuosly obvious fact and what I consider a decent hypothesis (isomers etc.), but mostly because of other reasons (ie. amount of vitamin Bs are not completely random) that I believe make Ortho-Core the smallest chance of harmful effects compared to many other vitamins. Also the spending is light so I'm still left with the 80bucks a month to make my 300 contribution.
Just because I take does not mean I can't be critical about it, don't make it so black and white. However, I do think the amounts of vitamin C and E are pretty high on Ortho-Core which I have previously ignored but given recent non/negative results and I would perhaps like a justification for it.
And speaking of which, could someone explain the theory behind Network Synergy? What is AOR's stance on The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences refuting benefits from antioxidants? Does AOR have a opinion about worries that messing up with ROS signalling through too much endogenous antioxidants might be more harmful than helpful?
you are just trying to cause trouble man... just like scott said, lifemirage but in the oposite direction.
Don't get so worked upped about this. I really don't think my cautions are unreasonable, even if they turned out wrong. What you guys term "being in the cutting edge" is the contemporary term for what often later turns out "wasting money on useless/harmful supps".
I just would like my evidence for buying supplements and ingesting them a little more grounded in data instead of relying to, say, the oft used "Big Pharma is evil", "it's natural so it must be good" or whatever simplistic explanation that may have flown in the past.
My gut feeling is that A LOT from positive vitamins results are from observational studies, however, such results are not necessarily very reliable as vitamin consumption tends to correlate with every imaginable healthy habit so controlling for independent variables becomes difficult. The RCTs OTOH, have been mostly disappointments.
