A study released last week by the Cochrane Collaboration reported that a review of 67 randomized trials of antioxidant supplements concluded that the supplements not only didn’t prolong life, but that there was strong evidence that they might shorten it. The numbers are stunning. The trials reviewed included almost a quarter-million participants, including healthy people and those with diseases.

In the strongest studies (19 double-blind trials with good randomization and follow-up), supplements in doses considerably larger than those in the drug-store variety of multivitamins appeared to increase the risk of death, the authors report. Researchers always select what they’re going to review, and Health Sciences Institute reports more than 400 studies of antioxidant supplements with no such dire conclusions and certainly no deaths. These studies were ignored–what sampling for “objective” science!

Suspicions re Supplement Studies
Never forgetting that the pharmaceutical companies are driving to have all supplements available only by prescription from MDs (CODEX), I am ever suspicious of studies that “confirm” that supplements are useless, if not dangerous. If we accept these conclusions, then there will be little or no protest when we find that pharma drugs are the only meds available to try to heal us–which drugs rarely do.

The Cochrane Collaboration and its Library is a medical database that has been online since its inception in 1986; it’s now part of Wiley Interscience and is usually available only by subscription. The objective of the collaboration, which is based in London, is to have medical research online (with all the data available) to enable such meta-studies.

Based in London, it doesn’t have a whiff of the AMA (maybe) and named after an epidemiologist, a medical field inclined towards wellness, lifestyle choices, and nutrition, rather than pharmaceuticals, the Cochrane Library seems to be clear of malevolent motives. (This study was published in February 2007 in JAMA.) The Collaboration, however, is a loosely identified group. It’s reported on the website that in their gathering of studies to be included the authors wrote to pharmaceutical companies for additional trials to include in the meta-study.

Nutritionally clueless?
You can bet the bank that no study sponsored by a pharmaceutical company has ever discovered any value in nutritional supplements. And with U.S. MDs having had, at most, one class in nutrition in their medical education, the physicians studying supplements are clueless (or careless) to the differences between synethetic and natural-sourced vitamins and the varied forms.

Many minerals on the market are pulverized rocks, which the body cannot absorb. Studies of vitamin E (using the synthetic form dl-alpha t) concluded that it was ineffective. I totally agree! In my own unintended experiment I had bought the dl (damned liar) form of Vit. E and wondered after two weeks why I still had the symptoms I was taking it for.

Often the researchers are unaware or uninterested in the various forms of supplements and use forms other research has already found to be less than helpful. Glucosamine-sulfate is an example of a form that works, but glucosamine hydrochloride isn’t nearly as helpful. Then researchers using the hydrochloride version found–vola! glucosamine doesn’t work!

We’re each an Experiment!
Reports such as this meta-study remind me of WMB’s mantra: “I’m an experiment of one with everything I take, and I am the only one that matters.” Over 70 percent of the diseases causing death in America are diseases of deficiencies. Even the AMA is now recommending vitamin supplementation. The fact is that death is usually brought on by the organs wearing out, and they wear out because our aging bodies don’t produce the hormones and numerous nutrients we generated when much younger. And the nutrients in the US food supply are considerably reduced from what they were 50 years ago.

Though I’m confident (and hopeful) there are millions like her, but I have met one woman in her late 60s, who looked and claimed to be in peak health, who took no supplements. “I know I’m suppose to take CoQ10, but I never remember to take it,” she told me. “If you’re feeling so great that you don’t remember to take something, you couldn’t need it!” was my response. We hear that every woman over 30? 40? 50? is suppose to take calcium supplements. Two days of calcium supplements and I have spurs on my spine (calcium deposits) –quit the calcium and in two days they’re gone. I’m one over 50 who certainly doesn’t need calcium. Everyone of us is unique with unique nutritional needs.

See a Nutritionist
A visit to a nutritionist is the best way to learn how to nutritionally heal yourself. You can tell all your aches and complaints to an MD (if you talk real fast in a 7-minute meeting), but the usual recommendation is a pharmaceutical prescription for pain, nothing that’s going to heal the cause of the discomfort. Nutritional healing cures the ailment, not blocking the pain but eliminating the cause of the pain. And taking supplements your body doesn’t need is harmful. An annual blood chemistry test recommended by many health practitioners is very useful. A kinesic strong-arm test is another test a household-member can do for you daily (see WMB for details).

News such as this report makes one question–but only for a moment. Listen to your body–you are an experiment of one, and only you experience the results or consequences of what you do or don’t do for optimal health.

Salud!
Beverly Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com