vitamin e more harmful then good?

Jeff

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My wife had Good Morning America on the tv this morning when I got in the shower and they had a whole segment on the study. I think she is going to throw out my brand new bottle of 400IU vit E pills :( The doc on the show was saying that the multivit dose of about 30IU a day wasn't harmful and was unsure if it was helpfull. It's hard to tell what to believe, one year eggs are bad for you next they are good, next year butter is gonna kill you so you switch to margerine and then they say the trans fats in margerine are even worse then the butter ever was. I'm gonna wait for bobo's and others input before I stop taking it.
 

jweave23

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I already posted this in the supps section, wondering why you did in here :think:
 
LakeMountD

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sorry bout that.. i was going to post it in there but wanted bobo's opinion on it. My bad ;).
 
Dwight Schrute

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sorry bout that.. i was going to post it in there but wanted bobo's opinion on it. My bad ;).

For those with increased free radical production (bodybuilders) its perfectly fine. THere is too much evidence showing this.

If you are consuming a good amount of fats in your diet you probably can cut back.

Where is the study anyway?
 

MarcusG

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Bobo, any thoughts on natural vs synthetic, ester c vs ol' ascorbic acid...?
 
Dwight Schrute

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My thought is...


marketing.

I've read numerous articles and heard lectures by Dr. Weil and he said the actual difference is extremely small with most vitamins. If you want the best inforamtion on vitmains, minerals and herbs and overall natural health and helaing, Dr. Weil is your man.
 
Dwight Schrute

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I found an answer he gave about something along these lines:

"Today's Question
Which Form of Vitamin E Should I Take: Tocotrienols or Tocopherols?

I just took your Vitamin Advisor survey, and my printout for vitamin E included a reference to 80 mg of a “proprietary vitamin E blend� which includes 15 mg. of tocotrienols. I'm confused. I thought your daily recommendation was 400 to 800 IU of mixed natural tocopherols?

-- Jason B."

You're not the only one who has been confused by this new vitamin E dosage recommendation. Let me try to explain it to you. First of all, you should know that vitamin E is not a single compound. Instead, it is made up of eight different compounds, four tocopherols and four tocotrienols, (in both cases called alpha, beta, gamma, and delta). In other words, vitamin E, like vitamin B, is a complex. Until recently, most vitamin E supplements provided only one of these components, alpha-tocopherol, which researchers long felt was the active component responsible for any protective antioxidant effects. However, when tested in scientific studies, results for vitamin E often varied widely. It may be that these variations occurred because the vitamin E supplements used — either natural or synthetic — contained components other than alpha-tocopherol.

Scientists now believe different components in vitamin E may be responsible for different actions. For example, gamma-tocotrienol appears to have the ability to lower serum cholesterol levels, while gamma-tocopherol may be better at helping prevent cancer, specifically prostate cancer. Tocotrienols also appear to contribute to the beneficial properties of natural vitamin E complex, but little research has included them until recently. This preliminary research has convinced me that tocotrienols have widespread and important roles in the body.

Therefore, I feel that the ideal vitamin E product should provide a daily dose of 80 mg of the whole complex, including mixed tocopherols and mixed tocotrienols in their natural forms, and at least 10 mg of that should be tocotrienols. (Researchers are now beginning to measure vitamin E in milligrams rather than International Units, or IUs.) When you shop for vitamin E in health food stores or through online supplement retailers, you may find that most vitamin E products still list their content of mixed tocopherols in IUs rather than milligrams. That’s fine, as long as such a product also contains at least 10 mg of tocotrienols. As for the dosage of tocopherols, it may be less important than the fact that a product contains both tocopherols and tocotrienols.

Unfortunately, such a product may be hard to find and will be more expensive than mixed natural tocopherols alone (One option is the Basic Multivitamin and Antioxidant Formula available on this site, which contains about 15 mg of tocotrienols from palm oil in addition to mixed natural tocopherols.) The next best choice would be to continue to take a product with 400 to 800 IU of mixed natural tocopherols. The least useful products are those that give you only synthetic dl-alpha tocopherol and nothing else.
 
Dwight Schrute

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And here is his answer about this exact article:

"I understand your concern. Here’s the story: results of a new analysis from Johns Hopkins University suggest that taking daily doses of vitamin E that exceed 400 international units (IU) can increase the risk of death. The researchers arrived at their conclusion after analyzing death rates in 19 unrelated clinical trials that studied vitamin E supplementation for various health conditions. The trials took place from 1993 to 2004 and all together included more than 136,000 patients in North America, Europe and China. The vitamin E doses used in the different trials ranged from 15 to 2000 IU per day; the average daily intake was about 400 IU.

The technique used to arrive at the Hopkins’ results -- called meta-analysis -- can only raise questions, not answer them. Vitamin E has no known toxicity, except for an anticoagulant effect that is usually desirable.

The analysis found that taking a daily dose of 200 IU per day presented no increased risk of death and suggested that it might benefit health. However, the researchers found an increased risk of death at daily doses exceeding 200 IU; for those taking daily doses of 400 IU or more the risk of death was about 10 percent higher than among those taking placebos.

But the analysis also revealed some seemingly contradictory data. For example, one of the studies showed that among people who had had a heart attack, taking vitamin E was correlated with a lower risk of a second heart attack. Despite this encouraging finding, the patients taking the vitamin E were more likely to die than those taking the placebo.

It is important to know that most of the patients
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all of the trials analyzed were over 60 and had pre-existing health problems such as heart or kidney disease. The Hopkins researchers conceded that because of the age and compromised health of the study participants, their findings might not apply to younger, healthier people. The study results were presented on Nov. 10, 2004, at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions in New Orleans. They were simultaneously released on the Web site of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

My feeling is that the health status of the study participants could be the problem here – perhaps the vitamin E had some unpredictable bad effect on their pre-existing conditions or didn’t mix well with certain medications. The researchers also may have overlooked controlling for the form of vitamin E used in the various studies. Natural vitamin E in the form of mixed tocopherols can possibly provide different benefits than synthetic versions limited to alpha tocopherol. We’ve seen in the past that under certain circumstances supplements can have unexpected, negative effects. For example, two major studies have shown that straight beta carotene supplements led to more, not less, lung cancer among smokers.

Based on what we know now, my advice is still to take supplemental vitamin E in doses up to 400 IU a day but not exceeding that. Avoid dl-alpha-tocopherol and look for products that include all four tocopherols, not just the d-alpha form. Better yet, try to get the whole vitamin E complex: four tocopherols plus four tocotrienols. But, as always, be sure to discuss with your physician any supplements and medications you take – over the counter or otherwise.

Andrew Weil, MD"
 

MarcusG

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The value of vitamin complexes (compared to taking only the main 'active' compound) makes reasonable sense and can be understood readily.

But is there any truth to 'right handed' natural vitamins being superior?
 
Dwight Schrute

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Technically, maybe but I havne't seen any evidence that has proven it to be statistically significant.
 
Sir Foxx

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18 of the nineteen studies showed no statistical difference in death rates. This guy is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the pharma industry. Notice how he ties in his "findings" with statin prescription drugs and how they work and are safe but people fear them and instead use the "voodoo" of supplementation. Big medicine is all about treating the symptons of whatever because that is where the money is at. Preventing disease and poor health isn't conducive to the bottem line. This is nothing more than their attempt at turning public opinion against non-prescription supplements by trying to masquerade as real science. Taking a good multi with certain vitamins above and beyond the multi is good for the average person and great for the athlete. Isolating a particular substance and using it by itself is misleading and for all intents and purposes deceitful. Anyone with any semblance of knowledge knows that any particular anti-oxidant has the potential for pro-oxidant characteristics at high enough doses or taken by itself. This is just another step in the complete shutdown of supplementation without approval from some authority.
 

200wannabe

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Here's one i got in the mailbox..


ANH PRESS RELEASE
11 November 2004

VITAMIN E STUDY MISLEADS CONSUMERS

Cautious interpretation is essential

The meta-analysis to be published next January in the Annals of Internal Medicine (Volume 142, Issue 1) , suggests that mortality in people taking over 400 IU of Vitamin E a day is increased. The study re-analyses data from 19 clinical trials involving Vitamin E published between 1993 and 2004 and was undertaken by researchers at John Hopkins Medical Institutions.

In the view of the Alliance for Natural Health, which represents doctors, practitioners, consumers and leading-edge companies with interests in sustainable healthcare and natural therapies, it is of paramount importance that the study results are interpreted with caution.

Scaremongering headlines, based largely on misinterpretations of the study, which have begun to appear today, do nothing to help the development of responsible self-care patterns in consumers which are urgently required in the face of escalating heart disease and cancer rates.



Limitations of the study

In a widely circulated press release publicising the study, Dr Edgar Miller, lead author of the meta-analysis at John Hopkins University School of Medicine, claims that "If people are taking a multivitamin, they should make sure it contains no more than a low dose of vitamin E … our study shows that use of high-dose vitamin E supplements certainly did not prolong life, but was associated with a higher risk of death."

However, the study has a number of very important limitations which mean that sweeping generalisations such as those made by Dr Miller should not be made. Such statements could be regarded as irresponsible particularly as they are likely to cloud consumer views over the importance of food supplementation as a means of compensating for the now well demonstrated inadequacies of the typical, western diet.

Some of the most important limitations of the study are:

· All trials in the study were performed using only one of the seven forms of Vitamin E, namely á-tocopherol, which is often used in its synthetic form. There is now strong scientific evidence which demonstrates that other forms of Vitamin E, as found in natural food sources, are much more effective as antioxidants, these being for example ã-tocopherol and the four tocotrienol forms. While á-tocopherol has long been the yardstick by which vitamin E activity is measured, ã-tocopherol, the most abundant form found in foods, has in recent years been demonstrated to have unique roles in the prevention of both cardiovascular disease and cancer (Stone WL and Papas AM, J Nat Cancer Inst, 1997; 89 (14): 1006-14).

· The studies were undertaken in the main on elderly persons suffering chronic diseases, so it is not possible to conclude that higher supplemental doses of Vitamin E promote disease or increase death among healthy people. This limitation is acknowledged in the John Hopkins study, the authors indicating, "we could not evaluate the generalizability of our findings to healthy adult populations."

· The follow-up periods for the 19 studies were often short, averaging from 1.4 to 8.2 years. In many cases the chronic diseases suffered by study participants would not be able to be significantly impacted over shorter time periods.

A number of further limitations have been cited by the authors of the study.

 

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