The recent results of a Vitamin E study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has declared that this vitamin increases prostate cancer by 2%. This news was circulated in a timely fashion to coincide with the many campaigns by Big Pharma and its allies, including The JAMA, to restrict the use, availability and the maximum dosage available for therapeutic use of natural vitamins.
The study is flawed, and typically it is written in a language designed to confuse and mislead the average person who is not accustomed to medical terminology. So let’s take a look in plain English at the study and its flawed results.
At the “context” section in the beginning it states “a statistically nonsignificant increase in prostate cancer risk with Vitamin E” Yet and this is where the first contradiction takes place, when we scroll down to the conclusion section of the report it clearly states ” dietary supplement of Vitamin E significantly increases the risk of prostate cancer among healthy men”. So, which part of the report is correct as they seem to contradict each other.
Moving along we must then address what vitamin E they are testing. Vitamin E is a generic name, the all natural Vitamin E is d – alpha – tocopherol (also beta, gama and delta – tocophero). But what you are not told is the Vitamin E used in this study, all rac-a-tocpheryl acetate is synthetic, made in a lab and derived from petroleum! It simply does not work or can perform the duties of natural vitamin, a petroleum based synthetic product cannot have any antioxidant qualities of natural E, neither can it repair tissue, prevent cardiovascular disease. And most importantly as reported in many leading journals and books Vitamin E protects against cancer.
By taking synthetic all rac-a-tocpheryl acetate vitamin E you are in fact becoming deficient in the natural Vitamin E required for good health, worse still if your diet is low in Vitamin E, then you do in fact increase the risk of cancer!
The study concludes by demonizing natural products by asking the consumer to be “sceptical of health claims for unregulated over the counter (OTC) products in the absence of strong evidence of benefit demonstrated in clinical trials”. So why does the study go out of its way to put doubt into the minds of anybody reading this study? Conflict of interest! This study was heavily supported by Big Pharma. Dr Thompson, reported receiving research support from The National cancer institute for a randomized controlled testing finasteride (A Merck product) against a placebo, both supplied by Merck. Dr Gaziano reported receiving a grant from Pfizer, Dr Karp received support also from Pfizer whilst Dr Klotz received support for travel expenses from Sanofi -Aventis, Merck and Astra Zeneca, he also received research support for investigator initiated trials from Abbot and GlaxoSmithKleine. Dr Chin received consultancy fees from Janessen, Amgen, Novartis and Firmagon.
This study is bad science, it is flawed and misleading but re enforces the need for independent studies without corporate support. If you want a copy of the study you will have to go to the JAMA website sign up and pay $100 yearly subscription for the privilege!
But you may also find it in bookstores in the fiction section retitled:
“Vitamin E cancer scare study. Never letting the truth get in the way of a good story” www.vitalisnews.com