Originally published March 27 2012
Bogus vitamin E study used single-form, synthetic variety to claim nutrient causes bone loss
by Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) The Big Pharma-backed pseudoscience brigade is at it again trying to malign natural vitamins as if they were dangerous pharmaceuticals. A new study published in the journal Nature Medicine claims that taking vitamin E is linked to causing bone loss in mice, but fails to mention that the research involved just one of the eight forms of vitamin E, alpha-tocopherol, which was likely synthetically-derived from petrochemicals.
Contradicting a multitude of research over the years verifying that vitamin E plays a crucial role in maintaining bone health, along with many other vitamins and minerals, Koji Fujita and colleagues from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan, allege that taking vitamin E degrades bone mass. Their theory purports that vitamin E disrupts the natural balance between osteoclasts (bone-degrading cells) and osteoblasts (bone-building cells) by triggering the production of too many osteoclasts.
But their short-sighted research was conducted on a single, isolated form of vitamin E that was given to the mice in quantities normally taken by humans. Not only is this dosage too high for mice, but it is also detrimental when given alone in isolated, synthetic form, and apart from the other forms of vitamin E that work in tandem with one another to promote health.
Real, full-spectrum vitamin E includes alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-tocopherols, as well as alpha-, beta-, gamma-, and delta-tocotrienols. This natural form, which is found in various nuts, seeds, and oils, and which is also available in some high-quality supplements, is far different from the single, isolated form of alpha-tocopherol that was fed to mice as part of the study -- the former promotes good health, while the other can cause serious health problems (http://www.naturalnews.com/030899_vitamin_E_brain.html).
Whether deliberately or inadvertently, the researchers involved with the study, which hail from various sectors of the medicine field, utterly failed to make any distinction between alpha-tocopherol and full-spectrum vitamin E. And the mainstream media went right along with the sham, publishing ridiculous headlines like Vitamin E 'may be bad for bones'.
It has become a common tactic in studies that attempt to shed a negative light on vitamins -- using isolated, synthetic forms of vitamins to make all vitamins look bad -- but one that an increasing amount of people are recognizing as a fraud. Back in 2011, for instance, the Life Extension Foundation published a highly-informative rebuttal to a similar vitamin E-bashing study that we covered previously (http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/INFEML_Rebuttal_E_1018.htm).
Sources for this article include:
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.2659.html
http://gma.yahoo.com
http://www.naturalnews.com
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