Magic Bullet Medicine - Experts Say Antioxidant Supplements Don’t Reduce Risks of Disease
Wednesday, April 16, 2008 — Once again, the medical authorities are advising us NOT to take nutritional supplements. This time the effort comes from the United Kingdom. A group of scientists reviewed several dozen health research studies that had covered antioxidant supplements — Vitamin A, Beta Carotene, Vitamin C, the antioxidant mineral Selenium and Vitamin E. The study is linked below.*
The reviewed studies included 67 different efforts that involved over 232,000 people. Both healthy and unhealthy people were studied. The conclusion of this ‘review of reviews’ was that most of the anti-oxidants were not associated with any positive health benefit, except for Selenium.
Some supplemental anti-oxidants were associated with increased risks of death or cancer — Vitamin A and Beta Carotene increased risks by 16% and 7% respectfully, while Vitamin E increased risks of cancer by 4%. Vitamin C did not increase risks, but did not reduce them either. Selenium decreased risks about 9% in men for prostate cancer. Smoking tobacco products was also associated with most of the increases.
THE MAGIC BULLET THEORY
What’s the problem with this new review? Simple. All of these so-called scientific studies that were included in the review were testing the particular supplement the same way, making the same error in judgment — they were looking for a magic bullet.
They were asking “Does adding this supplement to the diet help prevent disease?” Seems like an innocent enough question, right?
Wrong.
When you add a single nutrient to your diet, especially in large quantities, you unbalance a finely tuned biological system. The body is built to operate within certain normal limits. When you upset the balance by adding too much of a particular nutrient, you risk exceeding those limits.
Further, most antioxidants work synergistically. Each operates as a biochemical ‘cog’ in the bio-gears that run your body. Adding one antioxidant without its synergistic partners, and without the cofactors that it needs to function within the body, is certainly not helpful. Why would it be?
When scientists design a study that adds large quantities of any particular nutrient into a balanced system, they are going to ‘discover’ the same result for each added unbalancing compound. They will prove that in health there are NO MAGIC BULLETS.
THE FIX IS IN
Interestingly, the way these studies are setup pre-determines their outcomes.
How should they be studied? They should test people to see if they are deficient in any particular nutrient. Then, for those people only, they should add that nutrient, plus any and all known cofactors and synergistic partner nutrients. Then they should report the results of this practice on the participants.
Even these scientists must already know that people who take a broad range of dietary supplements, in addition to eating a healthy diet, are generally healthier than those who do not. Thousands of studies demonstrate the wisdom of eating a healthy diet and taking a wide range of supplements.
However, taking merely one or two, or even a few supplements in large quantities is obviously NOT a good idea. Why that should be news to anyone is a good question.
So, why are we seeing so many of these “Magic Bullet” quasi-scientific reviews and stories in the news? Because there are powerful interests in the medical, pharmaceutical and health-industry world which desire us to believe that ‘natural cures’ don’t work, while ‘traditional medicine’ does.
The world is full of ‘traditional medicine’ snake-oil salesmen (and women). The magic bullets they are selling are patented. The profits in today’s patented magic bullet medical system are unthinkably enormous. Billions and billions are transferred from our pockets to the owners of the patents on the magic bullets of today’s acceptable, authoritarian sales people.
BILLIONS FOR BULLETS
Today’s patented medicines are the world’s most profitable businesses. Altogether, the patented medical drug business is a TRILLION DOLLAR industry.
This mega-industry overpowers the economies of each of the world’s large countries, as well as all the small nations. It dictates the laws regulating medical commerce, the directions of future research, and the regulations for the practice of medicine itself.
Governmental regulatory bureaus are staffed with people who received their scientific and medical education under subsidies from patent holding drug companies. The medical schools and universities where researchers and physicians undertook their scientific training and education were heavily subsidized by pharmaceutical profits from Magic Bullet Medicine.
Pharmaceutical company representatives — sales people — actually pay doctors to listen to their pitches during sales calls they make in the doctor’s office. Since laws restrain them from paying in cash, they pay with so-called ‘free samples’, other valuable gifts, free dinner invitations, tickets to conventions, lectures, and invitations to speak at events for which the are paid directly. As many as 1/3 of physicians in some specialties have lectured at drug company sponsored events and been paid by the drug companies to do so. See this 2007 article in The Journal of the American Medical Association about payments to doctors.
Because insurance payments to physicians are so low these days, doctors rely on drug rep payments as a major portion of their real income. For some physicians, this can amount to the equivalent of thousands of dollars per month.
Doctors are graded by the pharmaceutical patent owners, and rewarded on a sliding scale according to the number of prescriptions they give to their patients for certain drugs. The data comes from a national prescription database which contains patient info, doctor info and drugs prescribed. Every prescription filled at a pharmacy is entered into the database, which is made available to the drug companies.
Should this system be changed? Well that is a very controversial issue. But that it exists is not. Our system works to ensure the sales of patented ‘magic bullet’ drugs.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that medical research is oriented to support the magic bullet theory. Nor should it surprise anyone that non-patented magic bullets receive bad reviews by researchers whose education, salaries, and social life all center around patented wonder drugs.
THE MISSING QUESTION
The one question we can be certain that will seldom be asked is — “Are patented drugs generally helpful?” In other words — “Are there ANY magic bullets for health?”
Heaven forbid that we actually figure out that nobody has a magic bullet, a wonder drug or single therapy that will simplify our search for health and youthfulness — compressing the answer into a single pill or a handful of pills.
No matter who tells you they have found a magic bullet for health, don’t believe them.
Health requires a perfect balance of about 50 different nutrients — vitamins, minerals, fiber, fluids, antioxidants, fats, proteins, carbohydrates — all of which can be found freely in common vegetables, fruit, nuts, beans, spices, water, and yes… a few more behaviors including regular exercise, fresh air, exposure to sunlight, and support from companions, loving companionship from friends and family.
There is no magic bullet. Your doctor doesn’t have one, and neither does any vitamin company nor drug store.
The Greek doctor Hippocrates, remembered as the Father of Medicine, said it best thousands of years ago: “Let food be your medicine, and medicine be your food.”
If you’re already sick, then a few pills may help. But that’s a very dangerous road. Tread it with caution.
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*Source: Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy participants and patients with various diseases Bjelakovic G, Nikolova D, Gluud LL, Simonetti RG, Gluud C. Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy participants and patients with various diseases. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD007176. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007176
