Take care of yourself with natural products


Mainstream Studies On Natural Health Flawed

Recent headlines from an Oregon Statenumber of flawed industry funded studies on
University study asserted "Vitamin E trialsvitamins, minerals, & botanicals - in other
'fatally flawed" and the following storywords, the studies are purposely designed to
detailed how most studies on Vitamin E haveshow poor results in order to ward off
been flawed to the point of being essentiallynatural competition that might be safer, more
worthless.  Here  are  some  excerpts:effective  and/or  much  less  expensive.
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Generations of studies onThe public and our doctors have been told
vitamin E may be largely meaningless,over and over again that natural alternative
scientists say, because new research hassuch as vitamins, minerals and botanical
demonstrated that the levels of thiscompounds provided by nature are inferior to
micronutrient necessary to reduce oxidativewhat man creates in our labs and such flawed
stress are far higher than those that havestudies are what are often pointed to for
been  commonly  used  in  clinical  trials.justification. If the studies are flawed, by
design or not, it becomes a self fulfilling
In a new study and commentary in Free Radicalprophecy. Such suspicions of the motives
Biology and Medicine, researchers concludedbehind flawed studies are magnified when one
that the levels of vitamin E necessary tolooks at the apparent agenda of the FDA and
reduce oxidative stress are four to eightthose behind the push for adoption of a North
times higher than those used in almost allAmerican Union kind of agreement modeled
past  clinical  trials.after the European Union model, which limits
access to only a select group of natural
This could help explain the inconsistentvitamins, minerals and supplements at dosage
results of many vitamin E trials for itslevels  far  below  what  is  effective.
value in preventing or treating
cardiovascular disease, said Balz Frei,It is this author's opinion that we should
professor and director of the Linus Paulingnever fail to keep in mind that the people
Institute at Oregon State University, andbehind these studies have a vested stake in a
co-author of the new commentary along withtrillion dollar plus annual industry and a
Jeffrey Blumberg, at the Jean Mayer USDAtrack record of taking no prisoners when it
Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging atcomes to competition. These are, after all,
Tufts  University.the same people who trotted doctors and
scientists before congress for four decades
'The methodology used in almost all pastto testify that vitamins had no benefit and
clinical trials of vitamin E has been fatallywere even harmful, before finally giving in
flawed,' said Frei, one of the world'sto a mountain of evidence they could not
leading experts on antioxidants and disease."hide. These are also the same people who
assured us of the safety of Vioxx, Bextra,
Such news comes as no surprise to naturalAllieve, Avandia, Gardasil, Fosamax, mercury
health advocates, but the public announcementvaccines, mercury amalgam fillings, and a
of the results is surprising because itlong, long line of past and present drugs
spotlights a common failure of testingassociated with dangerous side effects,
natural alternatives that has gone on forincluding  large  numbers  of  deaths.
decades: namely, testing dosage amounts well
below  the  therapeutic  level,The same group of vested interest, despite
over half a century of abject failure in the
Many believe that testing such low dosagewar on cancer, still maintain that cutting
amounts, along with other flaws such asout, burning out and poisoning out symptoms
testing inferior or incorrect forms of theis superior to addressing the underlying
item being studied, studying only an isolatedcauses and natural prevention. And, when you
vitamin, mineral or compound without theget down to it, it was pretty much the same
supporting compounds found in nature are thegroup that assured us for generations that
result of looking at the minimum RDA amountscigarettes  were  harmless.
recommended to maintain good health instead
of the therapeutic amounts needed to addressIt was a welcome surprise to many to see a
illness and disease - as well as the factmainstream study point out the failures of
that only synthetic creations, alteredhow vitamins and other natural therapeutics
natural compounds and uniquely isolatedhave been tested. Too bad we don't see such
compounds  are  patentable.information constantly paraded before the
masses on television and in journals, popular
There is no economic incentive for industrymagazines and newspapers instead of the
to fund expensive studies and trials ofbarrage of "Ask Your Doctor" ads clearly
something they cannot patent, have a gooddesigned to condition the viewers into
chance of recovering their study and trialentering the wonderful world of managed
costs, and then going on to reap largeillness.
profits that can run into the billions of
dollars. On a darker side, there are many whoLive long, live healthy, live happy!
suggest that such profits are behind a great



1 A B C D 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 83 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 114 115