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LE Magazine March 2005

False and Misleading

The Media's Unfounded Attack on Vitamin E

Why Test Vitamin E in Sick People?

You may be wondering why millions of dollars were spent evaluating the effects of alpha tocopherol on people in serious disease states. Since vitamin E is not patentable, a scientific basis must exist for a grant to be awarded to fund these kinds of studies.

The reasons why so many dollars have been spent to see whether individual supplements could save the lives of sick people are:

Laboratory studies conducted in cell cultures and animals indicate that the antioxidant properties of certain nutrients might be effective in advanced disease states;
Numerous studies on relatively healthy people show that consuming nutrients like vitamin E is associated with a reduction in the development of degenerative diseases.26-28

Based on studies showing beneficial effects in people who supplement with vitamin E, doctors wanted to know whether this same effect occurs in people who have already entered a state of deteriorating health.

The regrettable fact is that once serious disease manifests, it takes a lot more than an alpha tocopherol supplement to give people a chance of regaining their health. Alpha tocopherol has been shown to help prevent a number of common disorders, but it is not a miracle cure, especially when taken by itself or in the form of low-potency multi-vitamins.29,30

What has been happening over the past several years is that an increasing number of studies shows that single nutrients do not provide a significant beneficial impact on existing disease. A few exceptions are studies showing that high-dose coenzyme Q10 dramatically slows the deterioration and even induces some functional improvement in those afflicted with Parkinson’s disease.31,32

Danger of Testing Single Nutrients

Expecting that alpha tocopherol alone, or in combination with low doses of other nutrients, will effectively treat disease is being optimistic, to say the least. All one has to do is look at what happens when only alpha tocopherol is used in a laboratory setting, and the results are not encouraging for single-nutrient supplementation.

For instance, in response to lipid peroxidation (free radical activity) that occurs on cell membranes, antioxidants like glutathione peroxidase are produced inside the cells. If one takes only alpha tocopherol, lipid peroxidation rates are suppressed in cell membranes, with a corresponding reduction in glutathione peroxidase production inside the cell. This deficiency of glutathione peroxidase makes the DNA and mitochondria inside the cells more vulnerable to free radical attack.33-35

When supplementing with selenium, however, glutathione peroxidase levels increase significantly, even with alpha tocopherol simultaneously protecting cell membranes against lipid peroxidation.36-38

Vitamin supplement users usually take selenium along with vitamin E. Seriously ill people who enroll in studies are told not to take any other supplement. These study participants are thus denied the benefit of taking the wide variety of supplements needed to protect against degenerative disease.

Selenium is one of several nutrients that can enhance the effectiveness of alpha tocopherol. After alpha tocopherol is used to suppress damaging free radicals, the remnants of alpha tocopherol can themselves induce oxidative stress in the body. Nutrients like vitamin C, lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10, and gamma tocopherol can help regenerate depleted alpha tocopherol.39

Based on this understanding, it is quite easy to see why alpha tocopherol is not going to keep sick people alive longer. It also shows the fallacy of expecting any one nutrient, or low doses of several nutrients, to provide the broad-spectrum biological effects needed to maintain or regain good health.

The bottom line is that serious supplement takers are simultaneously using many different nutrients to protect against the multiple mechanisms involved in the development of age-related disease. This means that a report stating that any one nutrient by itself did not achieve desired results is quite irrelevant, especially when many of the study subjects already had established disease.

SOME PROFESSORS PAID TO MANIPULATE MEDIA

The December 10, 2004 Wall Street Journal featured an article describing how big companies make direct payments to university professors who are willing to express views favorable to the companies’ interests.

This article described how companies make cash payments to academic professors or sponsor a university program in exchange for the professor touting the company’s view in written articles, editorials, television appearances, and the like. Even more troubling were instances of companies ghost-writing articles that academic professors would put their names on for dissemination to the media, as if these were independent views coming out of a major university.

The media seldom learns that the professor is paid to support a particular position because, in many cases, financial arrangements between the professor and the company are not disclosed.

According to the Wall Street Journal, universities do not mind this arrangement because it provides them with lots of free publicity, in addition to the direct financial compensation.

So when a professor from a prestigious university holds a press conference to announce a new scientific discovery, the media often has no idea whether it is being manipulated into providing front-page advertising for corporate special interests.

The media views academia as an unbiased source of reliable information. Yet on June 9, 2003, the Chair of the House Committee on Human Rights and Wellness cited a pharmaceutical industry budget that called for millions of dollars to be spent to “develop coalitions” and “strategic alliances” with universities, doctors, influential members of minority groups, and others.

How Many Lives Will Be Lost?

The media has often disseminated reports that unjustly attack the value of dietary supplements. The way this flawed Johns Hopkins report has been sensationalized is perhaps more egregious than any other media distortion to date.

Instead of recognizing obvious flaws in this report, the media turned it into headline news, causing widespread fear that vitamin E supplements might actually shorten life span. Never before has the public been exposed to such an outrageous farce.

The result of the media’s handling of this flawed study will be that many people will be duped into believing that there is no value to supplements. Yet even the researchers who authored this study admit that it has no relevance to what healthy people should do to prevent disease.

Of the many rebuttal articles Life Extension received concerning this flawed vitamin E study, we have chosen to publish the following article that provides a little humor regarding what regrettably will someday be recognized as an unfortunate event that will cost the lives of people who put too much faith in news media headlines.

Continue to read The Making of Killer E

References

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31. Muller T, Buttner T, Gholipour AF, Kuhn W. Coenzyme Q10 supplementation provides mild symptomatic benefit in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Neurosci Lett. 2003 May 8;341(3):201-4.

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33. Seven A, Guzel S, Seymen O, et al. Effects of vitamin E supplementation on oxidative stress in streptozotocin induced diabetic rats: investigation of liver and plasma. Yonsei Med J. 2004 Aug 31;45(4):703-10.

34. Fridovich I. In: Free Radicals in Biology. New York: Academic Press; 1976.

35. Matsuo M, Gomi F, Dooley MM. Age-related alterations in antioxidant capacity and lipid peroxidation in brain, liver, and lung homogenates of normal and vitamin E-deficient rats. Mech Ageing Dev. 1992 Jul 15;64(3):273-92.

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