Multi Vitamins and Cancerous Growth

"Many people assume that daily vitamin-intake does not only improve one's wellbeing but also significantly lowers the risk of various serious illnesses.

However, the latest research conducted by Serbian scientists disproves such preconceived popular notion. As it turns out, vitamins and nutritious supplements with antioxidants increase the risk of development of cancerous growths and may result in lethal outcome.

Serbian University of Nis has examined 170 000 patients suffering from esophageal carcinoma, stomach cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic tumor, and liver carcinoma. Further testing revealed that daily intake of vitamin complexes containing Beta-carotene as well as Vitamins A, C, E and selenium do not improve one"s weakened organism. More so, not only do these vitamins prove to be totally ineffective in battling illnesses, they often tend to worsen one's overall condition.

The research supervised by Dr. Horan Bjelavik yielded shocking results. As it turned out, patients who have been taking special vitamin complexes with beta-carotene and vitamin A had 30% higher risk of facing death than those who have never taken the vitamins. "Nobody expected such results," said the professor. "We couldn"t have even imagined that food supplements containing antioxidants could have such profound affect on patients' mortality."

However, according to the scientists, it is still too soon to draw any conclusions. They claim that results could have been triggered by the patients' higher intake of vitamin dosage. Besides, medics consider that vitamin complexes do not include the whole spectrum of nutritious elements contained in natural products such as fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants contained in fruits and vegetables "interact" with other elements thus providing a positive effect on the entire organism. Nutritional supplements in turn lack such "interaction.""


Click picture above for full article...

BTW, I saw these news in danish media first.
Pravda was the first I found in english...

so, not only do these vitamins prove to be totally ineffective in battling illnesses, they often tend to worsen one's overall condition.

Bull S***t. I take vitamins and I haven't gotten sick in a year since I started. And before I started taking them I was sick like every few weeks. I was always on antibiotics for sinus infections and things. I haven't had so much as a sniffle in a year. So no this isn't true.

I too take vitamins all the time and have been taking selenium suppliments for almost fifteen years now and I rarely get sick. By rarely I mean once every three years or so and then it's only a cold.

I do not get the flu shot and have not had the flu since I was a child.

I think it's important to remember that some antioxidents can be toxic.

More than 200 micrograms of selnium is toxic to the human body. I take a 50mg pill daily, I also take a multi-vitamin and a couple others.

I think if there is a problem it could come from people taking too much of a certain suppliment or relying on the suppliments instead of suppliments mixed with a balance diet.

Anyhoo, it's just my opinion based on personal experience I can't speak for everyone.

SPiderj

how can you be soooo sure.....nobody cares if you havent gotten sick....of course you havent youve been taking vitamins genius.....it might cause long term effects.....

Maybe the Serbian vitamins are contaminated with depleted uranium from the last war.

I too have taking vitamins for a long time and very rarely get sick.

[edit on 8-10-2004 by project_pisces]

I think not only this research is not proof that vitamins are bad it is proof that they are reallly good. If you read it carefully they only tested people that already had cancer and in that case the ones that had taken vitamins were doing superbly better, hence, vitamins help your cells grow and perform well which offcourse in a cancer patient turns out to be not so good.

it might lengthen theyre lives for maybe a long time.....but i feel bad for them anyways

Originally posted by Hellmutt
However, according to the scientists, it is still too soon to draw any conclusions. They claim that results could have been triggered by the patients' higher intake of vitamin dosage. Besides, medics consider that vitamin complexes do not include the whole spectrum of nutritious elements contained in natural products such as fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants contained in fruits and vegetables "interact" with other elements thus providing a positive effect on the entire organism. Nutritional supplements in turn lack such "interaction.""

Without even reading the article, there are a few thngs that jump right out in this study as being both dead on and inaccurate. As with any story reported, it's shaped in a way that will lead to a great headline and eye catching story and that headling often obscures the truth. A recent example is the story that eating carbs cause cancer. OHMIGOD! What they didn't tell you was that this cancer was in women in South America who ate only corn and not a balanced diet and all the corn they ate was from one source and probably highly contaminated.

Anyway... ANYTHING, even vitamins, can be deadly in high doses. Vitamin A and D are especially lethal. They are both fat soluable which means they are stored in your body longer than B and C vitamins. Take too much of any and you will have negative side effects. Yes, even sucking down too much vitamin C which urban legend claims cure colds can be bad for you. Also, if you rely on vitamins for nutrition, you are doing yourself a disservice. If you eat food, and most Americans have no problem doing this, you consume vitamins. If you eat a poor diet, you still get some, but you get vitamins. If you eat well, you do not need vitamin supplements at all (with the exception of extra folate for child bearing age women, and calcium supplements). The paragraph quoted above mentions this.

So, are vitamins life threatening? YES if you take high doses and YES if you eat vitamins at the expense of healthy food. Are vitamins themselves bad for you if eaten appropriately? No.

.....nobody cares if you havent gotten sick.

That wasn't the point of my post cookie monster.

It was stated as a personal observation not for adulation.

I'm a little confused as to why my post seemed to upset you so much.

Or was that directed at someone else.

Spiderj

[edit on 10/9/2004 by Spiderj]

Originally posted by RedBalloon
So, are vitamins life threatening? YES if you take high doses and YES if you eat vitamins at the expense of healthy food. Are vitamins themselves bad for you if eaten appropriately? No.

I agree 100% with this.

In the infamous words of ebenezar scrooge... Bah humbug! Sun is bad, you get cancer. Artifical sweetener is bad, it gives you cancer. Blows to the boobs give you cancer, Sex gives you cancer, now apparently vitamins give you cancer (suprise suprise). Don't get too fat, don't get too thin. Exercise more. Don't exercise too much. Take care with your body. Don't be obessed with your body.

Waking up is life threatening, being born is life threatening. Don't breath you could breath in nasty chemicals, Don't have open wounds you could get a nasty infection.

Give me ONE thing that isn't life threatening or open you up to the possibility of getting sick. Yes, too much vitamin XXX can be detrimental for your health but so what., too much or not enough of ANYTHING is bad for you. Why obsses about it? I'd rather have lived a life of enjoyment and go out with a bang than a life of watching my weight, exercising, making sure i'm eating the right things, never going out in full sun etc etc & dying in the end just the same as the people who grabbed life by it's dangly bits, spat in it's face and lived like there wasn't going to be a tomorrow.

LordGoofus: Spot on.. but why bother talking handfuls of unneeded and potentially harmful vitaims when you can eat them and enjoy the food?

Originally posted by RedBalloon
LordGoofus: Spot on.. but why bother talking handfuls of unneeded and potentially harmful vitaims when you can eat them and enjoy the food?

Well because it's completely imposable to get enough of anything to prevent or cure any illnesses with food alone. You'd have to eat pounds and pounds of the foods with the vitamins you need. Waaay more then anyone could eat.

Originally posted by Dru

Originally posted by RedBalloon
LordGoofus: Spot on.. but why bother talking handfuls of unneeded and potentially harmful vitaims when you can eat them and enjoy the food?

Well because it's completely imposable to get enough of anything to prevent or cure any illnesses with food alone. You'd have to eat pounds and pounds of the foods with the vitamins you need. Waaay more then anyone could eat.

You're exactly right! One would have to eat 50 lbs of twinkies to get even half of the vitamins you need, and if you ate Happy Meals alone, you'd likely need 20 or so to get things like vitamin A and E. However, if you eat *pause for effect* ....good food and vegetables then getting all the vitamins you need is not difficult. What's impossible is to eat so much food to overdose on vitamins that are potentially harmful if you take them in supplements alone. You can easily get all the vitmains you need in one day of eating well to fight disease and prevent illness.

*rolls eyes* I WAS talking about healthy food! Even with that it'd take far more then anyone could eat to get enough vitamins to treat or prevent illnesses. And the majority of people DON'T eat healthy food so just guess how bad they're doing!

I mean just looks at the side of a a food box or label or look up what vegetables and fruit have in them. Do you know the Daily Value is actually only the very LEAST you need to keep from oh saying getting scurvy (in the case of Vitamin C)? That's not even CLOSE to the amount you need if you want to prevent getting sick or treat what you do have.

I've been taking vitamins for many years. And I take C in large quantities.

I think the concern would be for A & D as was mentioned earlier. It might be beneficial to find a multi with the smallest dosage of A, as a person who eats a healthy diet may get what they need from their food.
Another suspect is iron. Most men and most menopausal women should NOT take a multi with iron.

If you have to supplement your diet, it's obviously deficient. No creature could evolve on a deficient diet. Better to fix it ;-)

Originally posted by Dru
*rolls eyes* I WAS talking about healthy food! Even with that it'd take far more then anyone could eat to get enough vitamins to treat or prevent illnesses. And the majority of people DON'T eat healthy food so just guess how bad they're doing!

I mean just looks at the side of a a food box or label or look up what vegetables and fruit have in them. Do you know the Daily Value is actually only the very LEAST you need to keep from oh saying getting scurvy (in the case of Vitamin C)? That's not even CLOSE to the amount you need if you want to prevent getting sick or treat what you do have.

Actually, no That's not true on not being able to eat enough food for nutrients. It's not that hard to get all the vitamins you need from eating well. It's possible to do it on 1500 calories a day, and likely to exceed the daily value on many nutrients. To go even higher, a 2000 calorie a day diet is more than enough to get whats needed to prevent illness and reduce cancer risk. And yes, most people don't eat well and lack in many vitamins - including those on supplements because the levels are so low on some nutrients due to risk of overdose. Many vitamins play together and are best absorbed by the body when combined or not combined with another vitamin. B12 and folate go together. Vitamin C and Calcium don't.

There is software available to break down exactly what one is eating and do all sorts of measures of completeness and balance. The daily valie on the sides of boxes is often grossly misunderstood especially when dealing with serving sizes. A good example is a bowl of cereal people eat in the morning. A serving is one cup and sometimes less. Most folks fill the bowl. A bagel is equal to 4 servings from the bread group on the food pyramid (which needs some work). A serving of chicken is the size of a deck of cards - many restaurants give you THREE of these and call that a serving. The daily value is also a recomended amount for healthy people ages 19-60 or something like that. Daily value can include RDA (recomended daily allowances for the above healthy people) and UL (upper limit for dosage known to be safe in a majority of people). Daily value guides also list these nutrients per serving, and for a specific amount of consumed calories in a day. People with special needs outlined by their doctor may have completely different nutritional requirements. An example of a common nutrient deficiency with drugs just for those interested is potassium levels in people taking diuretics for blood pressure - potassium imbalance can be deadly and supplementing without guidance is a big "don't."

As for vitamin C, it continues to be one of the most misunderstood in the bunch. You don't need to gobble C tablets down and constantly supplement. Some studies recently have shown NO effect on C and how often or how fast we recover from colds other than the placebo effect. But hey, if you believe it will work for you, then have at it, but don't overdo it. Vitamin C CAN have some negative side effects when taken in excessive quantities. Excessive vitamin C is also flushed out of your body and right down your toilet putting strain on your kidneys and liver that have to do all the cleaning out. If you're a Vitamin C addict, at least give a kidney a hand and drink lots of water (which, by the way, is also an essential nutrient).

Bottom line: good food is the BEST and non-dangerous way to eat all you need to stay healthy and fight disease. Eat well as a priority, then supplement if you are really lacking, or advised by your doctor. Otherwise don't waste your money. If you eat like crap, then one multivitamin dose should be all you need if you will not eat healthy (again an exception is those with deficiencies from disease or medication, calcium, and folate in child bearing age women). It takes some effort to eat well, but it's worth it.

And, whether or not we eat lots of junk food or eat healthier, we should realize that many of the nutrients in our fruits and veggies lose their potency the longer the time from harvest to plate. Cooking alters potency. Storing alters potency. Andd, let's not forget the pesticides and other various chemicals used in farming!
And, nutrition values vary somewhat from place to place, depending on soil conditions (and probably weather!)

I drink at least a gallon of liquids each day, with the majority being filtered water. Fluids are VERY important for optimal health.




[edit on 11-10-2004 by DontTreadOnMe]

Hellmutt,

Some people have medical conditions which prevent them from eating all the healthy food-fresh fruits, veggies and such.
With that in mind-some people have no choice but to take the vitamins.
If you say they are not as good as the fresh fruits, veggies...I am 100% sure u are correct. But it is not an option for some.
I also agree that they are good up to a certain point, after which they may become toxic-too much of a good thing is bad.
I guess the real question would be what is the optimum amount of these victims and minerals-FDA amounts-or much larger amounts written is health books.
I think-I am not a doctor-that the best point is probably somewhere in-between.