Originally published May 9 2004
Vitamins under attack by distorted research: attempts to discredit
nutritional supplements continue
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The mainstream press is awash in headlines claiming that vitamins are
now suddenly bad for your heart. It's hogwash, of course. Their
evidence? Certain vitamins were found to inhibit the liver's ability to
break down so-called "bad cholesterol." Now here's the real story on
this study. First, look at the motivation and funding: it's part of the
ongoing effort to discredit vitamins and push people towards using
prescription drugs to manage their health -- a strategy that pays off
handsomely for pharmaceutical companies. Secondly, this study used
artificial, chemical forms of the vitamins, not the compounds
found in nature. It's an old trick from the research community: any time
you want to show that Vitamin E is bad, just use dl-tocopherol instead
of d-tocopheral, and the results will almost universally be negative.
That's because the dl-tocopherol is synthetic and derived from chemical
factories, not natural sources like nuts and seeds. The next sleight
of hand in this study comes from the idea that all cholesterol is bad
for you in the first place. Cholesterol is essential for life. If you
had no cholesterol in your body, you'd die within a matter of hours.
Everyone needs cholesterol, and the proper balance of good to bad
cholesterol comes from eating a healthy diet (rich in plant-based
vitamins and phytochemicals) in the first place. So it is, in fact,
natural sources of these vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals that
promote healthy cholesterol. Yet this study manages to convey precisely
the opposite image: that vitamins are bad for you!
Finally, there
are thousands of studies linking the consumption of natural vitamins
with positive, well established health effects like improved mental
function, enhanced immune system function, reduced risk of heart
disease, a reduction in cancer, and so on. This one study simply doesn't
compare with the thousands of other studies that reached a different
conclusion.
Make no mistake: this study is just the pharmaceutical
industry groups hard at work attempting to discredit all nutritional
supplements. The FDA is smiling, no doubt, and will probably use this
study as "proof" that vitamins should be outlawed.
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