Positive Health Online

FSA Report Vitamins Slammed by Leading Scientist

The government-backed report by the Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals (EVM) published last week “betrays an alarming level of bias” and “unhelpfully fails to discriminate between short-term and long-term use” according to Professor Arnold Beckett OBE BSc PhD DSc FRPharmS, one of the country’s leading pharmacists and former President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Selective
The report, which generated no new data, but merely provides opinions on existing studies on vitamins and minerals, intimates that currently employed daily dosages of several popular vitamins and mineral supplements are unsafe, but Professor Beckett believes the report is “often at odds with prevailing scientific opinion” and “demonstrates an unseemly selectivity in the use of published studies.” In his capacity as Chairman of the European Scientific Advisory Group on Nutrients and Related Substances, an Association consisting of several hundred doctors and scientists with extensive hands-on experience with vitamins and mineral supplements and incorporating the Vitamin B6 Scientific Task Group, Professor Beckett has written to the authors of the Government report pointing out that the levels they have recommended for vitamin B6, vitamin B5, vitamin C, vitamin A, beta carotene, manganese, iron, and zinc are too low. He points out that “dietary supplements of vitamins and minerals are safer than foods themselves” and that the EVM recommendations are out of step with the generally higher levels recommended by the prestigious US National Academy of Science and other authorities.

Utter Nonsense
Professor Beckett’s group is particularly concerned by the EVM’s stance on vitamin B6 and its recommendation that the maximum daily dosage should be reduced from the levels of 50-200 mg daily that have been safely employed for almost half-a-century to 10 mg daily. In reaching this conclusion the EVM authors have astonishingly relied on an extrapolation from a dog study conducted twenty-five years ago and have ignored a wealth of much more apposite human data. Why use a crystal ball when the book can be read?! Even the authors of the dog study have objected to the way their data has been manipulated to derive a 10 mg recommendation, and have condemned the computation as “inappropriate” (Dr Ian Munro) and “utter nonsense” (Dr John Mills).

B6 Neuropathy Unknown in UK
The EVM believes that with presently used dosages of vitamin B6 there is a risk of inducing peripheral neuropathy, a disease of the nervous system. In reality this condition is caused by gram megadoses which have never been employed in Britain but which were popular in the US some twenty years ago. Such large doses are no longer employed in the US and the problem of B6-induced neuropathy has entirely disappeared in that country. In the UK, no neurologist consulted has ever seen a case. As Professor Richard Hughes, Professor of Neurology at King’s College, London, typically remarks: “I have never personally encountered a case of vitamin B6 neuropathy.”

Key studies ignored
In the EVM’s draft report released some months ago, several studies that are larger or better conducted than those cited were ignored, prompting several investigators to write to the government to protest about the situation. One such key investigator, Professor Dimitrios Oreopoulos MD PhD FRCPC FACP FRCPS, Professor of Medicine at Toronto University, together with his neurologist colleague Dr R Gordon Blair MD FRCPC has demonstrated the complete safety of vitamin B6 at daily dosages of 250-500 mg taken for long periods (up to eight years) and has written to the British Government to remonstrate over its recommendations (enclosure 1). The EVM authors have responded by dismissing this study of 22 patients because of “the low number of patients involved.” Instead, and quite absurdly, they prefer to base their recommendation of 10 mg daily solely on a group of 5 dogs given vitamin B6 for three months! Is the EVM’s motto now “all we need are 5 dogs to establish the safe doses of vitamins?”

Dr David Hawkins MD PhD in Arizona probably has more clinical experience with vitamin B6 than any other researcher and has personally administered this vitamin at a dosage of 200 mg daily to some 15,000 subjects, many of whom have taken this dose for up to 40 years. One thousand of these patients even underwent comprehensive neurological examination in a hospital setting but no toxicity or adverse side effects were discovered or reported on in any subject. Dr Hawkins has written to the British Government to draw attention to his work and to request that “these very considerable data be borne in mind” by the government when finalizing its recommendations on vitamin B6 (enclosure 2). Astonishingly, the EVM authors entirely dismiss the work of this highly renowned clinician.

Another leading vitamin B6 researcher, Dr Michael Brush, formerly of St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School, London, has written to the government in great dismay to complain that his work has been misrepresented, and that at no time did he report that vitamin B6 induced neuropathy in any of his several hundred patients, who took 100-200 mg daily (enclosure 3). Incredibly, the EVM authors continue to doggedly state that “Brush reported neuropathy…” It is unfortunate that the EVM repeatedly misquotes an author despite a personal correction from the author concerned.

Palpably Wrong
When the 10 mg recommendation for vitamin B6 was first proposed five years ago by Professor Frank Woods and his group, to the profound astonishment of the scientific community, the independent House of Commons Agriculture Committee made an in-depth evaluation of the evidence and concluded that Professor Woods and his group had ignored the fact that vitamin B6 has been taken by millions of people at dosages up to 200 mg per day without evident toxicity, and were “palpably wrong” in concluding that levels should be reduced to 10 mg. In setting up the EVM, the Agriculture Committee expressed the hope that the EVM would base its recommendations on “sound and substantiated scientific knowledge.” That hope has very clearly been dashed.

Pseudoscience
Professor Beckett, who is also Chief Scientific Adviser to the National Association of Health Food Stores, is so affronted by the EVM’s intransigence on this issue and the perverse way in which decades of clinical experience demonstrating complete safety at currently employed dosages is being dismissed in favour of a twenty-five-year-old animal study (constituting “one of the worst examples of pseudoscience that he has ever encountered”) that he has issued a challenge to the EVM authors to participate in a public debate on the matter, but has met only with a deafening silence.

Source:

New York Times Attacks Dietary Supplements: Life Extension Foundation Responds

Controversies continue to arise as to whether healthy people should take dietary supplements. The latest example is a New York Times article (April 29, 2003) that attacks vitamin supplements as being useless and potentially dangerous.

A basis for this article was negative comments from an organization whose prior press releases indicate that they serve as a public relations front for big industry. Some of positions this organization has taken over the past few years include:
1.    Beef Benefits American Diet
2.    McDonald’s® Food Not Harmful
3.    Acrylamide (found in French fries) Does Not Boost Cancer Risk
4.    Ground Beef Should Be Irradiated
5.    Children Not More Vulnerable To Environmental Chemicals
6.    Nothing Wrong With DDT
7.    Risk Factors for Prostate Cancer Cannot be Modified
8.    Dry Cleaning Chemical (perchloroethylene) Poses No Human Threat
9.    Diesel Exhaust Emissions Pose No Risk To School Children
10.    Eggs Are A Valuable Component of American Diet

It seems that whenever health risks are uncovered that hurt corporate profits; this organization jumps to the rescue with what would appear to be an unbiased scientific rebuttal. For instance, when oestrogen/progestin drugs were found to be so dangerous that clinical studies were halted (to protect the lives of the participants), this organization issued a press release that helped deflect criticism against these hormone drugs.

Based partially on proclamations from this organization, the New York Times came to the conclusion that “multivitamins have not been shown to prevent any disease and that it is easy to reach high enough doses of certain vitamins and minerals to actually increase the risk of disease”.

Considering this organization’s track record of defending the commercial interests of big business, it is remarkable that the New York Times would make use of their assertions to attack dietary supplements.

The Life Extension Foundation intends to write a detailed expose about this blatantly unscientific New York Times article. This response represents Life Extension’s initial response to this unfounded attack on dietary supplements.

Some Scientific Facts
The consistency of evidence in the scientific literature shows that dietary supplements help prevent disease. This is not just the position of The Life Extension Foundation, but also of the world’s two leading medical journals.

On June 19, 2002 for instance, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reversed its long-standing anti-vitamin policy by advising all adults to take at least one multivitamin pill each day. According to the Harvard researchers who wrote the new JAMA guidelines, it appears that people who get enough vitamins may be able to reduce their risk of common illnesses such as cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis. The Harvard researchers concluded that sub-optimal levels of folic acid, vitamins B6 and B12 are a risk factor for heart disease and colon and breast cancers; that low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteoporosis and fractures; and inadequate vitamins A, E, and C may increase the risk of cancer and heart disease.

This was not the first time a prominent medical journal endorsed the use of vitamin supplements. The April 9, 1998 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine featured an article titled “Eat Right and Take a Multivitamin” that was based on a series of positive studies showing disease prevention benefits of dietary supplements.

One of the most prestigious journals in the world is The Lancet. In a study published in a 2001 issue of The Lancet, researchers at Cambridge University in England looked at serum vitamin C and how long people lived. People who had the lowest levels of vitamin C were twice as likely to die compared to those with the highest serum vitamin C levels. This study was based on the findings from over 19,000 people. (Lancet; 357: 657-63. 2001.)

The question for those who want to postpone death is do you want your blood to contain the lowest or highest levels of vitamin C. Since being in the lowest level doubles your risk of dropping dead, you should consume fruits, vegetables and supplements that are high in vitamin C.

A fascinating study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in August 1996 showed that over a nine-year period, people who consumed higher dose vitamin C and E supplements reduced their mortality risk by an astounding 42%. Based on the results of this 11,178 person study, if you take vitamin C and E supplements, your chances of dying over the next nine years is reduced by 42%.

Are you concerned about cancer? You should be. Cancer kills 1,500 American every single day. The older we grow, the more DNA mutations accumulate. Mutated DNA causes cells to lose their cell cycle regulatory control and cancer is often the result.

Data from the famous Nurses’ Health Study conducted at the Harvard Medical School showed that long-term supplementation with folic acid reduces the risk of colon cancer by an astounding 75% in women. The fact that there are 90,000 women participating in the Nurses’ Health Study makes this finding especially significant. (Annals of Internal Medicine 129: 517-524. 1998.) The authors of this study explained that folic acid obtained from supplements had a stronger protective effect against colon cancer than folic acid consumed in the diet.

An article published in the December 25, 1996 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that 200 mcg of supplemental selenium a day reduced overall cancer mortality by 50% in humans compared to a placebo group not receiving supplemental selenium. This 9-year study, published by the American Medical Association, demonstrated that a low-cost mineral supplement could cut the risk of dying from cancer in half.

Many people still question whether they should supplement with folic acid and selenium. Based on the evidence showing that these supplements may dramatically reduce the risk of contracting cancer, it would appear that every American should take these supplements. They cost only pennies a day and have been shown to protect against the most feared diseases afflicting modern man.

One of the first human studies that substantiated the benefits of vitamin supplements occurred in 1992 when a study emanating from UCLA reported that men who took vitamin C lived 6 years longer than those who consumed the FDA’s recommended daily allowance of 60 mg a day. The study, which evaluated more than 11,0000 participants over a 10-year time period, showed that vitamin C intake extended average life span and reduced mortality from cardiovascular disease by 42%. This study was published in the Journal Epidemiology (3:(3): 194-202. 1992.)

Are you convinced that vitamin supplements can delay your date of death? If not, consider a study published in the British Medical Journal (314(708). 1997) that evaluated 1605 randomly selected men in Finland aged 42-60 years between 1984 and 1989. None of these men had evidence of pre-existing heart disease. After adjusting for other confounding factors, men who were deficient in vitamin C had 3.5 times more heart attacks than men who were not deficient in vitamin C. The scientist’s conclusion was, “ vitamin C deficiency, as assessed by low plasma ascorbate concentration, is a risk factor for coronary heart disease.”

Does vitamin C cause kidney stones? That’s what some doctors still say, but a report from Harvard Medical School showed no increased risk of kidney stones when evaluating 85,557 women over a 14-year study period. This report, published in the April 1999 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, showed that women who consumed 1500 mg a day or more of vitamin C were no more likely to develop kidney stones than women who consumed less than 250 mg of vitamin C a day. The study did reveal that women who consumed 40 mg or more of vitamin B6 were 34% less likely to contract kidney stones compared to women taking fewer than 3 mg a day of B6. So now that kidney stone risk has been ruled out, let’s look at some of the human studies showing positive benefits to vitamin C supplementation.

In the March 9, 1999 issue of the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation, elevated homocysteine levels were shown to cause rapid onset of endothelial (arterial lining) dysfunction. This type of dysfunction reduces blood flow and can facilitate a lethal arterial spasm. Vitamin C inhibited arterial dysfunction by interfering with oxidative stress mechanisms. The doctors conducting the study stated that acute impairment of vascular endothelial function could be prevented by pretreatment with vitamin C.

Mainstream medicine has historically ridiculed vitamin C supplementation. In today’s modern world, conventional medicine says that only 200 mg a day of vitamin C is required, despite findings showing that high doses of vitamin C are required to produce optimal benefit. Meanwhile, the FDA continues to stick with its position that no more than 60 mg a day of vitamin C is needed.

The most frequently voiced criticism about supplemental vitamin intake is that it produces “expensive urine,” since water soluble vitamins, such as vitamin C and the B vitamins are rapidly excreted into the bladder within hours of ingestion. It appears desirable, however, to have a bladder full of vitamins because certain vitamins inhibit chemicals that cause bladder cancer. In the September 1996 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, a study on the risk of bladder cancer in vitamin takers showed the following:

1.    High intake of vitamin A and beta carotene was associated with a 48% reduction in bladder cancer incidence compared to the lowest levels of vitamin A and beta carotene intake;
2.    People taking higher amounts of vitamin C had a 50% reduced rate of bladder cancer. Those who took 502 mg or more of vitamin C a day had a 60% reduction in bladder cancer compared to those who took no vitamin C;
3.    For those who took multi-vitamin supplements for at least 10 years, the reduction in bladder cancer was 61% compared to people who took no vitamin supplements;
4.    High intake of fried foods was associated with double the risk of bladder cancer.

A recitation of all the published studies that validate the disease reducing effects of nutrient supplements would consume thousands of pages. Based on the scientific studies presented in this abbreviated response, the New York Times statement that “multivitamins have not been shown to prevent any disease” is obviously false.

Preliminary Conclusions
There are contradictions in the scientific literature as to what degree of protection dietary supplements afford against disease. When any scientific study is conducted, there are many factors than can confound the findings. The result is a continuing controversy as to whether healthy people should take dietary supplements.

The Life Extension Foundation expends enormous resources to methodically review the published scientific literature in order to identify the proper doses of dietary supplements that are of practical value to those seeking to reduce their disease risk.

It is the position of The Life Extension Foundation that the New York Times article titled “Vitamins: More May Be Too Many” is largely baseless. Due to the huge circulation of the New York Times, the net result will be the needless deaths of tens of thousands of people who will perish from diseases that have been shown to be preventable by the proper use of dietary supplements.

EU Food Supplement Directive: What Impact Will It Have On Dietary Supplements?

by John Hathcock(CRN) and James Roza(Now Foods)
EU Food Supplement Directive: Impact On Dietary Supplements?
by John Hathcock(CRN) and James Roza(Now Foods)

On July 12th 2002, the European Commission enacted the European Commission’s Food Supplement Directive. The objective of this directive is to achieve a single set of market requirements for food supplements in the European Union, thereby removing trade barriers within Europe. The directive defines food supplements as ‘food stuffs’ and identifies them as concentrated sources of nutrients or other substances that provide a nutritional or physiological effect.

In addition to providing regulations that cover Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and labelling, the Directive establishes a positive list of nutrients (Annex 1) and nutrient forms (Annex 2) and thus restricts those substances that may be used in food supplements.

Currently, there are approximately 300 nutrients and/or nutrient forms used in the manufacture of food supplements in the United Kingdom that have been excluded from the list. Conspicuous by absence are all forms of vanadium, boron, silica, choline and inositol as well as numerous forms of vitamins and minerals. Ingredients such as dibencozide, d-gamma-tocopherol, and pantethine would be precluded from use in vitamin and mineral preparations. This provision would dramatically affect manufacturers and suppliers alike by summarily eliminating their products from the EU marketplace.

The only recourse manufacturers and suppliers have to their avail to prevent these exclusions is the submission of a dossier detailing an ingredient’s biological and toxicological properties. The deadline for submitting dossiers for missing nutrients or nutrient forms is July 2005. Individual EU member states can allow a derogation period of four years while the EC’s Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) evaluates these documents for acceptance. If rejected, these nutrients would not be available in a food supplement after December 31, 2009. If the derogation is not allowed, the ingredient would be removed from the market by July 2005.

It is imperative that companies interested in retaining the unlisted ingredients for use in food supplements respond to the opportunity to submit dossiers. Currently, only seventeen dossiers are actively being compiled. That leaves a total of approximately 283 nutrients that will be left unaccounted. Companies interested in dossier submissions should contact Phil Harvey, Science Director for NNFA or John Hathcock, Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) for further details.

In addition to establishing a positive list of ingredients for food supplements, the EU Food Supplement Directive also mandates the setting of ‘maximum’ quantities of the nutrients for inclusion in supplements. The Directive specifies that the maximums are to be determined on the basis of safety as evaluated by risk assessment, taking into account the range of intakes from conventional foods. While that seems straightforward, the same article of the Directive allows regulatory officials to give ‘due account’ to ‘population reference intakes’. The escape valve may be used as a ‘back door’ to RDA-based limits by some national authorities.

Recently, the Expert Committee on Vitamins and Minerals (EVM) of the United Kingdom proffered their recommendations on vitamin and mineral safety. These recommendations are nominally directed toward the UK Food Standard Authority (FSA) but with full awareness that they become the UK negotiating position in the EU. The EC SCF will consider the UK EVM’s recommendations, as well as those of the other national governments, in the establishment of the maximums under the EC Directive. Unfortunately, both the UK EVM and the EC SCF have reached safety conclusions that are unnecessarily restrictive – far beyond that needed to assure the safety of supplements.

Niacin, for example, will be limited to 17mg and B6 to 10 mg. These levels are not in concert with the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences or the Food and Nutrition Board and will result in the re-formulation of countless food supplements currently sold in the EU. This will have a significant impact on food supplements sold abroad by limiting the potencies and composition of these products. The EVM, SCF and FNB are far from agreement on many nutrients, raising the prospect that trade disputes will continue. Presently, CRN and the NNFA/AHPA International Committee is lobbying the EU for higher, science based standards. Those companies interested in preserving rational, science based limits are encouraged to participate.

Secret Plan For Fluoride In Water

Ministers are planning to allow fluoride to be added to all drinking water in England and Wales despite continuing concerns about the long-term health risks, leaked cabinet paper have revealed.

They have ordered the controversial move because they believe it is the best way of reducing tooth decay among children from ‘deprived’ areas.

Only about 11% of the population receive fluoridated water and the move is certain to spark a fierce debate.

Although water fluoridation has been proved to reduce tooth decay, critics fear it may also be linked to increased risks of cancers, hip fractures, kidney trouble and even birth defects.

They see it as a form of ‘mass medication’, leaving people no choice but to buy bottled water if they do not agree with the policy. They point out that people can look after their teeth perfectly well by using fluoride toothpaste.

The documents reveal Tony Blair is personally backing the plan to extend fluoridation.

A document signed by health and environment ministers last month concludes that opponents are in a minority and that “this minority should not be allowed to deprive health communities from opting for fluoridation by insisting on an indefinite research programme”.

Minister will introduce the change in amendments later this month to the Water Bill, allowing strategic health authorities to order fluoridation after consulting the local population.

In September the Medical Research Council, a government-funded agency, reported that more information about potential health risks, including links between fluoridation and cancer rates, was “needed by the public to make informed decision”.

The plans are so controversial that the prime minister has agreed to allow cabinet member and other Labour MPs a rare free vote on the issue. Ministers are confident, however, the changes will be supported by a clear majority, as opinion polls have consistently shown that about two thirds of people believe fluoridation to be beneficial.

Ministers argue the measures are justified because children in fluoridated areas have much less tooth decay.

A letter from Hazel Blears, the health minister, and Elliot Morely, the environment minister, says: “Those who remain adamantly opposed would be able to use water filters that remove fluoride or buy bottled drinking water”.

The letter, dated April 15 is addressed to John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, in his role chairing the domestic affairs cabinet committee.

It says: “Experience of oral health promotion projects shows that it is much harder to establish regular tooth-brushing in deprived areas – because of the costs of toothpaste and, perhaps, because of the less-ordered lifestyles lived by families.

The proposed change would transfer responsibility for deciding the treat water away from the water companies and give it to regional strategic health authorities.

Manchester would be one of the first to act. Other areas where tooth decay is a problem include inner London, south Wales, Yorkshire and East Midlands.

Leave Water Alone
For decades a debate has raged about putting fluoride into Britain’s water supplies. Dentists say there are proven benefits in reducing tooth decay among children, giving them healthier teeth for the rest of their lives. Some experts warn, however, of possible links with bone cancer, stomach complaints and even birth defects. Underlying that debate has been an important civil liberties issue. Critics say fluoridation shows the nanny state at its worst. Does the government have the right to inflict what amount to mass medication on the population just to protect children who parents’ fail to ensure they care properly for their teeth?

Fluoridation is a controversial issue for the government to take on, having got its fingers burnt on genetically modified foods. At present 11% of people in Britain have fluoridated supplies, in the majority of which fluoride is artificially added. No new areas have been fluoridated since the water industry was privatised under the Thatcher government. The proposed legislation will allow the 28 strategic health authorities in England to order the fluoridation of water after local consultation. There is, however, little conclusive research either on the benefits, or the possible health costs, of such a policy. In America, the shift is in the opposite direction, more than 50 towns and cities having withdrawn fluoridated supplies since 1990. In France and Germany fluoride is added to table salt, but people have the choice of not using it, or of buying on non-fluoride product.

At a time when the government talks of modernising healthcare and transforming the 1948 model of the NHS, fluoridation is a curiously old-fashioned policy, a throwback to the days when people had neither the knowledge nor the means to make themselves healthier. Today, the shelves in every supermarket are stacked with fluoride toothpastes. Ministers talk of enhancing consumer choice but are proposing a policy that offers no choice. Evian and Malvern must be rubbing their hands. If the government goes ahead with the plan, the main beneficiaries will be the bottled water companies.

Conclusion
Give people the choice to buy fluoride toothpaste if they want it.

Aspirin – The Bitter Pill That Kills

An aspirin promotion group called the Aspirin Foundation boasts that the chemical “probably has been taken, at one time or another, by almost every human being on earth.” Wishful thinking, no doubt, but pill-happy Americans scarf down 25 million aspirin tablets a day. The British take it in a powder, the Italians take an effervescent, champagne-like mix, the French take it rectally, and the Thailanders put it in their morning and evening tea. Chemical companies produce 90 billion aspirin tablets a year. If all those tablets were placed end to end they would stretch to the planet Infinity and back. Did you ever think that you would see the day when Americans by the millions would be popping aspirin for their health? Do all these people really have an aspirin deficiency? Did God forget to put aspirin in our food? Will an aspirin a day keep the doctor away? You’d probably say no to all of the above because it doesn’t make any sense to take a chemical as if it were a vitamin. But it took the British to figure out how the aspirin industry and the AMA pulled off such a scam.

The Real Hero: Magnesium
The much-promoted Physician’s Health Study proving that taking aspirin regularly will prevent heart attacks didn’t use just aspirin but aspirin plus magnesium in the form of Bufferin. Research done years ago proved that magnesium protects the heart. It dilates blood vessels, aids in absorption of potassium into cells (which will prevent heartbeat irregularities), acts as an anticoagulant (blood thinner) and keeps the blood cells from sticking together (thrombosis). Autopsy of the heart muscle following death by heart attack almost always reveals that the heart muscle is deficient in magnesium. I have been taking a magnesium supplement for 10 years and I have hundreds of patients on magnesium. We just don’t see heart attacks in patients who stick with it. So the doctors (and their patients) have been conned again by the group that has been leading them around by the nose for 75 years the pharmaceutical industry. A British study using only aspirin revealed that aspirin had absolutely nothing to do with lowering the incidence of heart attacks.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul?
The American study was so flawed that you can’t help but wonder if the aspirin industry financed it. The subjects were white, male, mostly non-smoking doctors who were not monitored, and who reported their condition by letter post office research. The study used an extremely healthy group with only one eighth the death rate of the general population. Even with such a healthy group, the study results had some ominous overtones. That’s the part the aspirin companies don’t want you to know about. Though heart attacks were relatively rare, strokes and sudden death from other causes were more common among the aspirin group than with the placebo group. This information is very significant. The claim for reduction in heart attacks among the aspirin group was 47 percent. But the small print (very small print) in the report said that when death from all causes was considered, there was no difference in the mortality rates of the two groups. Thus, death from other causes among the aspirin group increased substantially an amount equal to 47 percent of all heart attacks in the non aspirin group. Did you know that every time you take aspirin you bleed a little into your gut? A microscope will show that the bowel movement of someone on daily aspirin has blood in it every time. If it’s happening in your intestinal tract, how do you know it’s not happening in your brain? How many strokes are precipitated by chronic aspirin intake? How many fatal haemorrhages of the brain, spleen, liver, intestine, or lung occur after an automobile accident because the blood has been thinned with aspirin? Nobody knows and nobody is checking.

Prevention That Works
There are many natural ways to protect yourself from heart attack without enriching the Bayer Company:

•    Magnesium, as mentioned above, is absolutely essential for a healthy heart and should be given credit for the beneficial results obtained in the aspirin study;
•    Salmon oil contains a strong platelet antisticking agent called eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA).
•    Garlic blocks the clotting mechanism;
•    Niacin is a well known anti-atherosclerotic agent;
•    Vitamin C is an important factor in prostaglandin production;
•    Vitamin E is also important in the production of prostaglandins;
•    Bromelin reduces platelet stickiness;
•    Zinc is a necessary catalyst, along with the enzyme d-6-d, in certain fatty acid metabolic processes essential to the health of your coronary arteries;
•    Vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine) converts the highly atherogenic homocysteine to cystathionine. This prevents meat protein from damaging your arteries. Also stops platelet aggregation;
•    Folic Acid neutralizes the enzyme XO in homogenized pasteurized milk. XO hardens your arteries;
•    Carnitine and Taurine, two of the amino acids considered nonessential by most nutritionists, are absolutely essential for a healthy heart. There are other nutrients for a healthy heart, but you get the picture. So who needs aspirin?

The Cancer Connection
A few years ago I was in Nashville, Tennessee attending a medical conference with a colleague. While at dinner he developed severe chest pain, was rushed to the university hospital, and was found to have suffered a heart attack. He went very quickly to bypass surgery and survived it with no complications. I was visiting him one day following the surgery when a nurse came in to give him his aspirin tablet. She stood there and watched him take it with a glass of water. It was almost a ritual. Such is the reverence felt for this drug. But in addition to the reports showing aspirin has no preventive effect on heart attacks, new reports show that aspirin may cause cancer. And what’s more, a study of California researchers reported in the British Medical Journal that older men and women who take aspirin every day almost double their chances of developing so-called ischemic heart disease. Ischemic heart disease accounts for a wide range of illnesses involving blockage of the arteries carrying blood to the heart. Aspirin-users were also more likely to develop kidney and colon cancer, the study found. Lawrence Garfinkel, Vice President for Epidemiology at the American Cancer Society said, “It would give one pause about using aspirin routinely to prevent an initial heart attack. This is going to be very confusing to the public. “The new study concluded: “Our study would not recommend that these people routinely consume aspirin.” There are a few other reasons why you shouldn’t take aspirin: indigestion, bleeding ulcers with possible haemorrhage and death from exsanguination (internal bleeding) and haemorrhagic stroke.

I’m Vain About My Brain
Leo Dropperman started taking aspirin to prevent a second heart attack, as advised by his doctor and the TV commercials. But when he read that daily doses could increase his chances of getting a haemorrhagic stroke, he quit. “I’d much rather have a heart attack than a stroke,” said the Tennessee psychologist. “I’m very vain about my brain.” Of course, it may be even worse than that. The British report mentioned earlier found no beneficial effect on heart attack frequency from taking aspirin, but the California study goes even further in suggesting that daily aspirin use may actually increase the odds of having a heart attack, as well as give you kidney and colon cancer. On hearing that news, drug companies quickly folded their medicine tents and split. Their commercials connecting aspirin with beneficial effects on heart disease were scrapped. Sterling Drug (Eastman Kodak) pulled its commercial depicting the Bayer aspirin logo over a pulsating heart monitor and substituted the old logo: “The wonder drug doctors themselves take more often for pain”. Bristol-Myers dragged out Angela Lansbury to say: “A cup of tea and a couple of Bufferin allow me to do the things I want to do”. Sterling Drugs even went so far as to introduce a Bayer calendar pack to remind people to take their aspirin. Consumers are beginning to question all these contradictory studies. They don’t know who to believe anymore.

So, when it comes to advice on drugs, who can you trust? The FDA? Well, in December, 1984 the FDA recommended allowing drug companies to promote the use of aspirin to reduce the chances of a second heart attack. Can you trust the medical journals? In January, 1988, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that an aspirin every other day reduced the risk of heart attacks. (Is it coincidental that the drug companies have been able to get their slimy fingers into the New England Journal of Medicine with multi-million-dollar advertising contracts?) Can you trust the medical advice given by actors on TV commercials? Forget I asked. Can you trust the hospitals and their doctors? Remember the episode my colleague had in the hospital with the nurse force-feeding him aspirin? After the aspirin-popping media blitz, aspirin sales temporarily increased and then resumed the old downward trend. The news leaked out that an aspirin a day would keep good health away. One disgusted advertising drummer said plaintively: “About the only preventive thing people do in this country is brush their teeth with fluoride.”

I guess you can’t trust the advertising agencies either.

Extract from the booklet How Health-Conscious Americans Get Killed by Bad Medicine by Dr. Douglas’ MD. The complete booklet is available at: http://www.rhinopublish.com/books/BadMedicine.htm

Orthomolecular Solutions to Heart Disease

The following simple solution to prevent heart disease is currently ignored in favour of the paradigm of more invasive and lucrative disease management. Studying the data below, one could conclude that the eradication of the this disease has been known for some time but is simply being ignored. This is an update to a note I sent to a number of people who wanted to know about some inexpensive non drug solutions. This note is by no means complete as I have not covered herbal and other mineral adjuncts. So far, 5 people. that I know, have tired vitamin C and Lysine and have had very good results.

This type of empowered and cost effective disease prevention is becoming a real threat to the medical industry thus the CODEX initiative. Again, at the risk of boring the reader, I direct you to the following link and encourage you to educate as many people as possible on this imminent loss of safe health solutions and our freedoms. www.iahf.com/anh_lawsuit.html

1.Linus Pauling Therapy for Heart Disease is at www.paulingtherapy.com/ and copiously describes a non toxic, cost effective Orthomolecular approach using vitamin C and amino acids lysine and proline.

16. According to the Pauling/Rath 1994 United States patent, the amino acid lysine (lysine analogs), along with vitamin C and other antioxidants (e.g. Co-Q10, vitamin E and vitamin A), can, in sufficient concentration, inhibit Lp(a) binding to exposed lysine residues. Proline residues are also exposed by lesions in blood vessels. Later experiments showed that proline as well as lysine, with vitamin C, other amino acids and antioxidants, in oral amounts well past what is needed for prevention, becomes a solvent by inhibiting the binding of Lp(a). A binding inhibitor augmented with vitamin C can stop and apparently even reverses some plaque formations. Pauling and Rath even have a second US patent for using these binding inhibitors as solvents to melt atherosclerotic plaques from human organs during organ transplants. The organ is dipped in the Lp(a) Binding Inhibitor solution and the plaques melt away. U. S. Patent # 5,278,189 is for the prevention and treatment of occlusive cardiovascular disease with vitamin C and substances that inhibit the binding of lipoprotein-(a). The full patent is available: www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/5278189.pdf www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/5230996%20Linus%20Pauling.pdf

Backing this up with Vitamin B6 is described in the Joe Hattersley paper Vitamin B6: The overlooked Key to preventing heart attacks.

ABSTRACT: Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) opens the door to eliminating the 20th century’s epidemic of heart attacks, cardiac arrests and strokes. Although shunned by the researchers who receive the bulk of heart disease research funding, it is creating excitement among a growing number of investigators. In this article relevant bits of B6’s history are presented to show how it can prevent heart attacks with almost no side effects from moderate amounts. This article will also integrate the effects of vitamin B6 deficiency with Mathias Rath and Linus Pauling’s theory (blaming heart attacks on deficient vitamin C and excess Lp(a) and Bruce Lipton’s histamine theory into a general theory of atherogenesis. www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/Vitamin%20B6%20The%20overlooked%20Key%20to%20preventing%20heart%20attacks.PDF
As usual any effective products such as amino acids (mentioned below) which are very effective for many diseases and essentially non toxic (far less toxic than even salt) are banned illegally by Health Canada to protect their pharmaceutical friends!

Chris Gupta
www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/practical_health/2003/06/03/orthomolecular_solutions_to_heart_disease.htm