Attack Of The Killer Antioxidants, or Was It a Prescription Drug That Killed Your Mom and Dad?

Yep, those naturally produced molecules called antioxidants that protect plants from free radicals generated by attack from solar radiation, insects, mold, viruses, heat and cold, when concentrated into a pill, could be killers.

Such a reputation certainly befits hemlock, but characterizing essential vitamins like vitamin E and vitamin A along with beta carotene as killers, well, that is a real stretch.

Tagging these nutrients in dietary supplements with a label as “life shortening” is what some analysts did. Of course, it’s OK to prescribe synthetic vitamin A as Accutane, the acne drug that is fraught with horrible side effects. And a carrot provides about 10,000 units of vitamin A activity, about what is found in supplements, so we now must deal with the attack of the killer carrots (subject of upcoming horror movie).

Never mind that most of the American population, save for supplement users, do not consume sufficient amounts of vitamin E to meet established daily requirements for health. For sure, a skull and cross bones will soon be mandated on bottles of vitamin E.

But then again, Cornell University’s list of poisonous plants includes elderberry, horse chestnut, rhubarb and flax, which are commonly available dietary supplements. Yikes, we’ve all been eating poisons!

So, what are we to do now that reviewers "plea for urgent political action” to deal with killer antioxidant supplements? [Bjelakovic G, et al. Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy participants and patients with various diseases (Review). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue 2]

Oh, a swift defense of dietary supplements was expected. "There is no basis in biology to presume that one or more of these nutrients can kill through any and all possible mechanisms of action," says Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and a professor with the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. But isn’t the dietary supplement industry hiding dead bodies in a closet somewhere?

Well, not like Merck, the maker of Vioxx. Merck is accused of withholding key data from trials of Vioxx, a COX-2 inhibiting anti-inflammatory drug. When editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association were asked about this they said, well, Merck isn’t the only company doing this, so Merck should not receive sole blame. Got it…….. Merck should receive no blame because it wasn’t the only car that was exceeding the speed limit and running over pedestrians.

Just how many dead bodies has Merck been hiding in their closet? The Food and Drug Administration estimates Vioxx may have contributed to 27,785 heart attacks and sudden cardiac deaths between 1999 and 2003.

A just-released study reveals Merck hid from FDA reviewers an April 2001 analysis of pooled data from two trials which identified 34 deaths among 1,069 Vioxx patients compared to 12 deaths among 1,078 patients in the placebo arms of the studies. Now that was an excess of 22 deaths per 1000 users and there were 22 million people who took Vioxx once it hit the market in 1999. At that rate, well, there would be 440,000 excess deaths.

So, did Merck kill your mom or dad? That is certainly a harsh thing to say about a so-called ethical drug company. Many senior Americans were prescribed Vioxx, the COX-2 anti-inflammatory drug that was eventually taken off the market in 2004.

Merck has announced $5 billion in payoffs to families of Vioxx victims, but really, where is the jail time? This wasn’t an accident. It was willful withholding of data that led to the early demise of thousands of Americans. The $5 billion is yet to be paid out, but Merck gets credit in the newspapers for offering compensation.

Meanwhile, Congressmen have come to aid of Merck in an attempt to keep it from going out of business, helping promote a slew of newly approved drugs like Gardasil, the overpriced papilloma virus cervical cancer vaccine that is touted to save lives of young girls, but has yet to be proven to save one life. In fact, because it does not create antibodies against all strains of the papilloma virus, it may be a useless vaccine.

But let’s point the finger where it ought to be pointed – at the dietary supplements. Let’s go look in their closet. The Poison Control Centers certainly ought to know, they tabulate all the reported adverse reactions from supplements that emanate from calls to their offices.

In the 2006 Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers' National Poison Data System (NPDS), the most recent report available [Clinical Toxicology 45: 815-917, December, 2007], we finally uncovered the hidden data the dietary supplement industry has been hiding. Let’s pin the tail on the right donkey. In 2006 there were 2,403,539 human exposure calls for drugs, supplements and chemicals, as tabulated by the nation’s 60 poison control centers. Here’s the list of the top killers.

There were 63,317 calls concerning dietary supplements to poison control centers in 2006, about 2.6% of all calls. Mercy, that’s a lot of calls. Given that water is not absolutely safe, any substance at a given dose can produce mortal side effects. Can dietary supplements be made safer by limiting their dosage? Let’s see, the death rate actually dropped about 7% among those taking vitamin D, mostly from supplements. [Arch Intern
Med. 2007 Sep 10; 167(16):1730-7] Then a UCLA study showed that 300 milligrams or more of vitamin C increases the lifespan of adult males by about 6 years. [Epidemiology. 1992 May;3(3):194-202] That’s about 3 times the vitamin C consumed from the typical American diet, so only supplement users would obtain this benefit.

According to a recent report, doctors may only hear one side of the story when it comes to dietary supplements. In reviewing 11 major medical journals, the journals with the most advertising for pharmaceuticals were far more likely to publish articles that concluded dietary supplements are unsafe (67% of these journals versus just 4% of the journals with the fewest pages of drug advertising). [BMC Complementary Alternative Medicine 8: 11, April 9, 2008] This equates with tacit editorial cooperation in demeaning dietary supplements in favor of drugs. –Copyright 2008 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.