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Special Update from the American Holistic Health Association with items
of interest to those actively enhancing their health and well-being.
Another free service from AHHA.
FEATURED ISSUE
Recent media headlines tout that the AMA declares that antioxidants
increase mortality. If you wish to check into this further, here are a
few differing perspectives to get you started.
AMA article claims: "Treatment with beta carotene, vitamin A, and
vitamin E may increase mortality":
"Mortality in Randomized Trials of Antioxidant Supplements for Primary
and Secondary Prevention Systematic Review and Meta-analysis" by Goran
Bjelakovic, MD, DrMedSci; Dimitrinka Nikolova, MA; Lise Lotte Gluud,
MD, DrMedSci; Rosa G. Simonetti, MD; Christian Gluud, MD, DrMedSci JAMA
(The Journal of the American Medical Association). 2007;297:842-857.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/8/842
NPA claims study flawed:
"Natural Products Association Says Medical Journal Study On Vitamins
And Mortality Is Flawed; Points To Research Showing Health Benefits And
Urges People To Continue Proper Antioxidant Use"
http://www.naturalproductsassoc.org/site/DocServer/Response_to_JAMA_Anti
oxidant_Study_2-27-07.pdf?docID=3201
Media source claims discrediting of nutritional supplements motivated
by financial interests:
"The big vitamin scare: American Medical Association claims vitamins
may kill you (opinion)" by Mike Adams at NewsTarget.com
http://www.newstarget.com/z021653.html
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Institutional Members who are centers or clinics that have gathered
several healing approaches within one facility.
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AHHA Special Update Editor: Suzan Walter
AMERICAN HOLISTIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION
PO Box 17400, Anaheim, CA 92817-7400 USA
Phone: (714) 779-6152
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In Reply to: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Walt Stoll [93.1889] on March 07, 2007 at 08:16:19:
Hi Doc:
Thanks. These flawed studies need to be brought out in the open and identified. There is too much misinformation floating about.
In Reply to: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Walt Stoll [93.1889] on March 07, 2007 at 08:16:19:
Hi Walt,
The following is my opinion..
Could it be that many of those who are taking a lot of vitamin supplements are doing so because of an undiagnosed condition?
Some are doing this without the assistance of an MD.
Vitamin E is the only supplement that might be a risk, so why are all vitamins now being blamed?
Here is a link to an article from 1995 which explains..
http://www.drmirkin.com/archive/6505.html
The anti-inflammatory meds which were blamed with causing an increase in heart attacks were being taken by those who already had an increased risk, so that study could be flawed as well.
Ron
In Reply to: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Walt Stoll [93.1889] on March 07, 2007 at 08:16:19:
Here is why:
"First, without even reading it I don’t think a lot of it. Why? Because it’s a meta-analysis. In my opinion meta-analyses are more often than not used for one of two reasons: to make something statistically significant that really isn’t or to do the opposite. Let me explain.
Suppose you want to do a study to prove that eating fast food once a day for six months would lead people to gain weight. You recruit people into your study, weigh them, give them coupons for six months worth of fast food, then weight them at the end. If a statistically significant fraction of people in your study gained a significant amount of weight over the six months, you could conclude - based on the data generated in your study - that eating fast food daily for six months causes people to gain weight.
Let’s say, though, that when you crunched all the data in your study you found that there wasn’t a statistically significant difference in weight gain. When you look through all the data you notice that some people gained a lot of weight, some gained a little, some stayed the same, and some even lost weight eating fast food for six months. As you drill down deeper in your data you discover that almost all of the people who lost weight while eating the fast food were people who work in jobs requiring a lot of manual labor. If you remove their data from your analysis, you find that now the people remaining in the study do gain a significant amount of weight on the fast food diet.
You now write your paper and say: We recruited subjects from various white-collar occupations and found that those eating fast food daily for six months gained a significant amount of weight. You title your paper: Six month fast-food causes weight gain. The press picks up your study and writes: Cheeseburgers and fries pack on the pounds.
But the study isn’t valid because you can’t cherry pick your data after the fact then recreate your study to fit the data the way you want it to.
But that is exactly what happens in meta-analysis studies. Instead of a single study, researchers amass data from a number of studies and pass it off as one. Problem is, they already know the results of the studies they’re allowing into their meta-analysis. They can set the standards so that studies they don’t want to include don’t make the cut and don’t sully their ultimate data. Whenever any kind of meta-analysis is done that gets picked up on by the press as this one has, people crawl out of the woodwork claiming that this study or that one wasn’t included that would have changed the outcome. (Click here to see what I mean.)
Often meta-analysis studies are used to give statistical significance to some finding that hasn’t been shown to be statistically significant in many smaller studies. For example, if you flip a coin you expect it to land on heads 50 percent of the time and tails the other 50 percent. But would you bet a lot of money that if I flip a coin ten times it’s going to land on heads five times? I doubt it because you know that ten times isn’t enough to ensure a 50-50 outcome. If I were to flip the coin 100 times, it would probably come closer to hitting 50-50, but you still probably wouldn’t bet the farm on it. If I flipped in 1000 times it would come closer, and 10,000 times closer yet. The point is, the more tries, the closer the outcome to whatever the odds really are, which, in the case of flipping a coin, 50-50.
Let’s look at this a different way. Let’s say that you have a coin that you think is weighted in such a way that it is going to come up heads more than it’s going to come up tails whenever it’s flipped. You flip it ten times and it comes up heads seven times out of the ten. That wouldn’t prove that the coin was weighted because there weren’t enough flips to overcome the random chance that the seven heads wasn’t simply a fluke of random chance. You know you could flip a normal coin ten times and get seven heads from time to time. So now you flip it 100 times and you get 65 heads and only 35 tails. Now, it’s looking like maybe the coin is weighted. But, even a hundred flips could give you this outcome simply by chance, albeit less chance than with ten flips. You flip it 1000 times and get 680 heads. Now you’re on to something because 1000 flips is enough to overcome the little runs of heads and tails that will skew the outcome on ten flips or even a hundred. If you flip it 10,000 times and get 6,920 heads, you know the coin is weighted.
Let’s say I want to prove that eating fat causes heart disease. I recruit fifty people, determine the amount of fat in their diets, and wait. Let’s say that I divide them into quartiles of fat intake and I find that over 20 years the quartile of those with the greatest fat intake have 5 heart attacks and those in the lowest quartile have 4 heart attacks. No big deal. Doesn’t prove a thing because it isn’t statistically significant. Now let’s say that someone else does a study that is designed a little differently–let’s say this study looks at saturated fat and heart disease and finds the same thing. That the highest quartile of subjects has one more heart attack than the lowest quartile. Same thing. No big deal.
Then we have a study that shows just the opposite. The lowest quartile of fat intake has one heart attack more than the highest. And another, structured differently yet, that shows one more heart attack in the fat-eating group. None of these studies prove anything–none are statistically significant.
Now comes someone who wants to do a meta-analysis. He (or it could be a she, but let’s call him a he) already knows the outcomes of these studies. He then structures his meta-analysis to include data from all the studies showing a non-significant increase in heart disease in those eating the most fat and excludes those showing the opposite. How does he do this? By setting the standards by which any paper makes it into his meta-analysis. He then takes all the data from these little insignificant studies and gives it significance because of the bigger numbers.
It would be like trying to prove a coin was weighted by taking ten ’studies’ of coin flips that went 6 heads/4 tails (which isn’t significant), eliminating ten studies that went 4 heads/6 tails, and adding the data up to saying that there were 60 heads out of 100 flips, which would be significant.
The same thing can be done in reverse to show that a particular finding is not significant by combining enough studies, the outcomes of which are already known, to get rid of any significant data. And meta-analysis don’t particularly pay attention to how well studies are done.
If a well-designed, well-executed study is performed showing that a low-carb diet significantly reduces blood pressure is combined in a meta-analysis with a crappy study showing that there is no change in blood pressure with a low-carb diet, then the overall significance of the excellent first study is diminished.
That’s why I don’t like meta-analysis studies and never give them much of a second look."
In Reply to: Re: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Ron [205.3327] on March 07, 2007 at 10:58:15:
Ron,
The problem is not supplements. Its the people taking them. Taking supplements without changing ones diet or doing anything else for wellness is a crap shoot at best. Spending money for yellow urine.
People abuse supplement just like they abuse drugs.
Silver Fox!
In Reply to: Re: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Steve [3019.3308] on March 07, 2007 at 12:33:57:
Hi Steve,
Too many people are simply self-treating without supervision.. At least prescription meds have some oversight idone follows the rules..
I once saw a woman who looked gaunt and ill, in a drug store dump about 15 bottles of almost every vitamin pill on the shelf, into her basket, without even reading the labels.
(If a little is good, more must be better)
That might have been all she was eating.
In Reply to: Re: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Ron [205.3327] on March 07, 2007 at 13:04:46:
Ron:
What is not well know is that prescription drugs kill thousands of people every year, while they are under a doctor's care and taking the proper doses.
The woman you saw may have received medical treatment by a conventional doctor and ended up looking gaunt and sickly. Maybe she then decided to take matters into her own hands and regain her health?
Or she could have been buying for a large family, or recovering from a long illness. You can't blame the vitamins for her gaunt look without knowing her history.
In Reply to: Re: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Ron [205.3327] on March 07, 2007 at 13:04:46:
Ron,
The problem I have with presciption drugs is they don't address or cure the problem. They only treat the symptom. Which is better? Take a pill when you get a headache or follow a wellness program and never get a headache? I prefer wellness and can't remember the last time I had a headache. If everyone did that Bayer would be out of business.
Silver Fox!
In Reply to: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Walt Stoll [93.1889] on March 07, 2007 at 08:16:19:
If synthetic vitamins vs natural are to blame for the health issues as stated in one of the rebuttals, then perhaps vitamins are bad for most people.
I would guess that the best selling vitamins in the country are probably, Centrum, One-A-Day, or some other similar brand. I haven't read a label lately, but I am guessing a lot of synthetic there.
In Reply to: Re: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Steve [3019.3308] on March 07, 2007 at 13:56:22:
I haven't taken a pain killer in about five years or more. In spite of my
diet which is off the wagon right now, I have not needed it.
In Reply to: Re: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Ron [205.3327] on March 07, 2007 at 10:58:15:
Of course, Ron.
However consider this: As a class, MDs are probably the least likely to have accurate information about this. It has been the policy of the AMA so flatly deny any relationship between health and the doasge of pharmacological levels of nutrients.
Walt
In Reply to: Re: Antioxident Misinformation--A different perspective! Archive. posted by Sounder [2889.2765] on March 07, 2007 at 15:33:39:
Thanks, Sounder.
Yup!
Walt
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