JAMA: synthetic low dose vitamins—of course they don't work!
Around 40% of people in western countries, and a growing proportion in developing countries, consume vitamin and mineral supplements. Those who know most about how nutrients work in the body—integrative medicine/functional medicine/nutritional medicine practitioners—know that you aren't going to be able show that cheap, supermarket-style, synthetic vitamins are going to reduce the risk of heart disease.
Well, that's exactly what Dr Howard Sesso and colleagues at the Brigham & Women's Hospital at Harvard did. And they seemed surprised that after 10 years of studying nearly 15,000 people, these supplements didn't work?
Howard Sesso, ScD, MPH
Associate Epidemiologist, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Associate Professor of Medicine
Here's an extract from Sesso's paper in the pro-pharmaceutical Journal of the American Medical Association telling us which vitamins and dosages were used in the trial:
Are you surprised the study yielded no clear beneficial results in the prevention of heart disease?
We weren't. Find out more in our release below.
Joint Press Release by the Alliance for Natural Health and the American Association for Health Freedom
November 18, 2008
FAULTY STUDY TARGETS VITAMINS C AND E
Finding of No Cardiovascular Protection Was Predictable
[Click here for PDF of press release]
[Click here for PDF of ANH analysis: "Designed to Fail: A trial without meaning"]
Today, the American Association for Health Freedom (AAHF) and its international affiliate, the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), have together sharply criticized defective and misleading research published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The research triggered headlines around the world suggesting that neither vitamin E nor vitamin C supplements protect against cardiovascular disease in older men.
The study by Howard Sesso and colleagues from Harvard, entitled the “Physicians’ Health Study II”, included over 14,600 male physicians over a ten year period, used the least potent form of vitamin E and incorrect dosages of both vitamins C and E, according to an analysis conducted by ANH experts, Dr Steve Hickey, Dr. Damien Downing, and Dr. Robert Verkerk.
The ANH analysis, “Designed to Fail: A Trial Without Meaning”, criticized the Sesso et al. study for using synthetic dl-alpha-tocopherol, which is less effective than the natural and more complete forms of vitamin E and is thus more likely not to reveal any benefit. Additionally, the vitamin E dose in the study (400 IU every other day) is far below the dose taken by many who supplement, making the findings irrelevant to older supplement consumers, who are aware of extensive research and clinical evidence on higher dose vitamin therapy.
The JAMA paper included a 500 mg daily dosage of vitamin C, which is only half of a typical one-gram tablet of the type popular with supplement users. Evidence suggests that dynamic flow levels of vitamin C, which may prevent heart disease, begin at daily intakes above about 3g per day, best delivered in divided doses.
Additional complaints about the JAMA study include the use of an unidentified placebo, which may have included beneficial nutrients such as magnesium, failure to control diet for synergistic nutrient interactions that may have skewed test results, and the relevance, or otherwise, of applying these findings among physicians (the study group) to all men across the population.
“Considering that the methodologies were significantly biased against finding a positive result from vitamins C and E as determined from both available research and clinical evidence, one has to ask who stands to benefit from these findings? How, for example, would the pharmaceutical industry be impacted from diminished sales of their vitamins if people, under the belief that vitamins provided no benefit in the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease, instead chose pricey prescription drugs,” asked Gretchen DuBeau, AAHF Executive Director.
Dr Damien Downing, ANH Medical Director, President of the British Society of Ecological Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of the peer reviewed journal, the Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine, on reading the Sesso et al. paper independently responded, saying it was “an intervention designed to fail”!
ANH Scientific & Executive Director, Dr Robert Verkerk added, “With three of the world’s largest drug companies, namely BASF, Wyeth and DSM—formerly Roche—supplying the low dose synthetic vitamins for the study, it’s perhaps not surprising that the outcome is made to look bad for vitamins. A trial like this costs a huge amount of money and is a waste of much needed research funds. Why don’t they ask the people who work with nutrients on a daily basis—integrative medicine doctors—what nutrient forms, combinations and dosages are most likely to work?”
The ANH analysis, “Designed to Fail: A Trial Without Meaning”, is available at: http://www.anhcampaign.org/files/081117_Sesso_PHSII_ANHrebuttal.pdf
ENDS.
CONTACTS
Alliance for Natural Health
Dr Robert Verkerk
Alliance for Natural Health, The Atrium, Dorking, Surrey RH4 1XA,
United Kingdom
Phone: +44 (0)1306 646 600
Fax: + 44 (0)1306 646 552
E-mail: info@anhcampaign.org
American Association for Health Freedom
Gretchen DuBeau, Executive Director
American Association for Health Freedom
4620 Lee Highway, Suite 210
Arlington, VA 2220, USA
Phone: +1.800.230.2762
Fax: +1.703.624.6380
E-mail: office@healthfreedom.net
Updated: 18 Nov 2008
