johngohde

Is Medical Scientism a bunch of crock when it comes to Vitamin
Research, or what? Do scientists intentionally distort their findings
by any and all means possible in order to further their political
agenda?

scientism
http://www.webref.org/anthropology/s/scientism.htm
"scientism: the belief that there is one and only one method
of science and that it alone confers legitimacy upon the
conduct of research."

The political position of the Medical Establishment seems to indicate
that those who take vitamin supplements are basically creating
expensive urine. The obvious political justification is that if
vitamins are indeed both inexpensive and effective why should
physicians prescribe statins which are both expensive and come with a
number of serious side effects; other then to extract as much money as
possible from both patients and their health insurance?

For example: "Many experts say the finding, published this week in
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Living/ap20030612_2091.html
The Lancet medical journal, settles the issue of antioxidant vitamins
for heart health."

Vivekananthan DP, Penn MS, Sapp SK.
Use of antioxidant vitamins for the prevention of
cardiovascular disease: meta-****ysis of randomised trials.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12814711&dopt=Abstract
Lancet. 2003 Jun 14;361(9374):2017-23.
PMID: 12814711

I call into question the following recent research study. According
to this study, the issue of antioxidant vitamins for heart health is
not by any means settled.

Osganian SK, Stampfer MJ, Rimm E.
Vitamin C and risk of coronary heart disease in women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12875759&dopt=Abstract
J Am Coll Cardiol. 2003 Jul 16;42(2):246-52.
PMID: 12875759

After taking into account the women's age, whether they smoked,
and other factors, the researchers found that the risk of heart
disease dropped as vitamin C intake increased. Women who used
vitamin C pills were 28% less likely to develop heart disease
than women who didn't.

The findings of the above study were different from most other recent
vitamin c research. Half of the human population happens to be female
and have a built-in immunity against heart disease for about 10 years
over men. This probably explains why women live longer than men do. As
a result, many other studies have shown antioxidants to be effective
for men, but not for women. And, that the men who have been the most
protected are those who smoke and engage in unhealthy
lifestyles.

Yet, the above study found that women who used vitamin C pills were
28% less likely to develop heart disease than women who didn't.

Now, compare that positive finding with this recent review study.

Morris CD, Carson S.
Routine vitamin supplementation to prevent cardiovascular
disease: a summary of the evidence for the U.S. Preventive
Services Task Force.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1\2834320&dopt=Abstract
Ann Intern Med. 2003 Jul 1;139(1):56-70.
PMID: 12834320

Full Text online for FREE at:
http://www.annals.org/issues/v139n1/full/200307010-00014.html

"In three of four cohort studies, vitamin C supplementation was not
associated with coronary heart disease mortality (21–23) or all-cause
mortality (23). In two studies in older samples (21, 23), vitamin C
use did not protect against coronary disease or all-cause mortality
after adjustment for relevant confounders (23). Similarly, vitamin C
had no impact on cardiovascular or coronary heart disease mortality
(27). However, in a good-quality follow-up study of NHANES I (22),
regular use of a vitamin C supplement reduced the standardized
mortality ratio for cardiovascular mortality by 48% and for all-cause
mortality by 26%. In a cohort ****ysis of a secondary prevention trial
of cholesterol reduction or coronary stenosis, vitamin C use (250
mg/d) had no appreciable effect on progression of stenosis (28)."

I read through the complete full text of this study. They found a
reason to exclude a sizeable number of studies from their review. And,
for every favorable finding they found a reason to discount it. I
would characterize this review as political as it gets.

So, I repeat my question.

Is Medical Scientism a bunch of crock when it comes to Vitamin
Research, or what? Do scientists intentionally distort their findings
by any and all means possible in order to further their political
agenda?
--
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!
http://NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
The ONLY Frauds in Health are those who couldn't care less about
prevention.

anth

The vitamin C foundation published early results for 800-1500% reduction in
plaque using ascorbic acid and lysine.
Since it involves 'mega dose vitamin' supplements and Pauling's/Rath's
research, I doubt the article will ever be published.
Shame really....
Anth

george conklin

This was actively taught in nursing and med schools, but it does not make
it true.

doug

Or it could be that they are indeed creating expensive urine, at least in
the case of vitamins B and C.
For A, D and E expensive health problems are created in lue of urine.
<snip>


<snip>

How many pills?
250mg supplement may be benificial.
500mg - you are gettin all you use.
500mg+, all the extra is pissed away.

Science dosn't support your ideas?
Easy solution - shoot the messenger.


Is that prevention of quackery you are talking about?
Good, then we agree.


--
"The emperor is *****!"
"No he isn't, he's merely endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle!"

to email me
Please remove "all your clothes"

Doug

doug

If it was never published, how do you know about it?


--
"The emperor is *****!"
"No he isn't, he's merely endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle!"

to email me
Please remove "all your clothes"

Doug

george conklin

Science is differently biased at different times but that does not stop
the fact that systematic ****yisis of vitamin supplements is going to be
looked at because vitamins cannot be patended and more importantly, put on
prescription. The first poster is completely correct in his comment that the
standard answer still given is that vitamins more than the minimum accepted
dose just produces expensive urine.

johngohde

Thanks for responding to my post.

Your comments operationally illustrate how a scientist in writing a
research paper, simply by careful selection of the words he chooses to
use, can make the findings of his research paper either positive or
negative depending on his political agenda. And, thus before you can
properly interpret the results, you have to first determine the spin
the authors are trying to put on their paper.

A recent example of this would be:

Hodis HN, Mack WJ, Azen SP.
Hormone therapy and the progression of coronary-artery
atherosclerosis in postmenopausal women.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12904518&dopt=Abstract
N Engl J Med. 2003 Aug 7;349(6):535-45.
PMID: 12904518

The author of this study was clearly playing a word game because
by his selective wording he was able to conclude that the study was
negative in that HRT did not protect against heart disease. As most
women take HRT in order to relieve the symptoms of menopause,
the issue of whether or not HRT prevents heart disease is quite
irrelevant.

Your comments, of course, don't speak well for impartial research.

If anything your comments illustrate exactly what a farce Medical
Scientism really is.
--
John Gohde,
Achieving good Nutrition is an Art, NOT a Science!

Get started on improving your personal health and fitness, today.
http://www.Tutorials.NaturalHealthPerspective.com/
Offering 14 easy to understand lessons that will change your life.

johngohde

I run a Yahoo Mailing List on Prevention and Healthy Lifestyles. To
date, I have reported on some 700 recent research studies on personal
health.

Anybody who spends any amount of time actually reading published
research would have to be some kind of a fool to place any faith in
the false religion of Medical Scientism to actually solve our Nations
Health Problems.

Published health research clearly goes in a spiral direction. It is
like traveling to the Moon, from Earth, by way of Mars. It is
laughably inefficient. It clearly has the objective of going as slow
as possible so that the paychecks of the research scientists will keep
coming in as long as is humanly possible.

And, as far as peer review research is concerned, it clearly does not
work in the case of Vitamin Research. Scientists in the field of
health research clearly are neither willing or able to correct the
problem. If Medical Scientism was how NASA depended on getting to the
Moon, we would never have gotten even one monkey to obit the earth
once.

Just my opinion. But, I am *right* as usual!
--
John Gohde,
Achieving good Health is an Art, NOT a Science!

Health-with-Attitude is a support group for people
trying to follow a Healthy Lifestyle.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Health-with-Attitude/

jeff utz

I know what you mean. The companies that sell vitamins and other so-called
health foods are so honest that they would never distort in any way the
findings of scientists or try to sell vitamins with any type of advertising
that is not 100% accurate and totally proven scientifically. What an honest
bunch of businessmen.

Jeff

I am not talking about personal opinions on health. I mean real
scientific research and that is not supported either by you OR the medical
establishment.