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Supplements? Are they worth the money?


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#1 Anne

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Posted 20 November 2003 - 09:44 PM


In the past few years, the vitamin and supplement industry has been receiving my money on a regular basis. By combining appropriate supplementation with a healthy diet, I hope to stave off premature aging and be proactive in reducing my risks of cancer and heart disease.

I find that it is extremely difficult to locate corroborating sources of information regarding supplements. If I am going to spend money on antioxidants, in addition to eating plenty of green leafy vegetables, fish, and soy, then I want to be at least partially assured that I'm doing the right thing.

Lots of articles cite studies, or groups of studies, done on humans and animals to evaluate the effectiveness of supplementation on health. It is very hard to evaluate the validity of these studies. Plus, as far as I know there have been NO extremely long-term studies done on humans that follow a supplement-taking group from young adulthood to old age and then evaluate the results. Most human studies on antioxidants seem to have taken place with adults over age 40 as the subjects. These people are only followed for a period of a few months or years. I would think that in order to perceive the benefit of something like a supplement, you'd want to have a MUCH larger time frame in which to evaluate the results. Can anyone point me at any studies where people have religiously taken something every day for over 20 years? So far I haven't found any.

And studies on rats, while somewhat useful, are not entirely conclusive because of the differences in human/rat anatomy. I have no idea, for instance, if rats in general are inherently more or less susceptible to tumors than humans. Plus, their lifespan IS much shorter than ours, which means that their systems differ in some fundamental way. Such creatures are generally considered to be good and useful models, but how much confidence can I put in rat studies?

I have also noticed that I've found studies with rats and other animals that seem to produce opposing results. In some cases, a given supplement is said to increase lifespan, but in other cases the very same supplement is implicated in the premature death of the animals!

What am I supposed to think?

I take antioxidants on the rather simplistic premise that they can help eliminate free radicals, and this is a good thing since free radicals can lead to cancer and accelerated aging. Is this reason enough?

I do find that when I take a multivitamin (Trader Joe's Super Crusade), grape seed extract, fish oil, and DMAE every day, I feel much better than when I've neglected to take my vitamins for weeks and months on end. Now, is this actual benefit, or is it the placebo effect? How can I tell the difference?

One thing I've noticed lately is that my fingernails seem to be looking better...I've been on this particular vitamin/supplement regimen for several months now. My nails were starting to get vertical ridges on them, and now these ridges seem to be disappearing! Is there anything I'm taking that could account for this, or is it just random? If it is, in fact, a good sign I will be quite pleased, because it couldn't possibly be the placebo effect if I wasn't expecting it!

Help me, people. I am looking to find real, accurate information I can trust.

I've looked on sites like http://www.quackwatch.org and while I think there is some good information there, as well as a cautionary emphasis in the direction of skepticism, I also think they are a bit too extreme in the glorification of "Western medicine". Your average doctor may have gone to medical school, but she is still a falliable human, and might be ignorant and suspicious of newer, promising treatments. It almost seems like many doctors in the USA have a knee-jerk reaction of "That's silly," whenever something non-mainstream comes up. What if some of that non-mainstream stuff might actually work?

I am not one of those alternative-medicine zealots; I do think a lot of it (copper bracelets, therapeutic touch, "energy alignment", the Feingold diet, and things called "Super Colon Cleanse") is utter crap. If I got cancer I'd certainly sign up for chemo...I wouldn't rely on weird mushroom teas or those immune supplements you see at health food stores. But I think there must be something to the idea of prevention...rather than just treatment.



-azalyn

#2 kevin

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Posted 20 November 2003 - 11:19 PM

as a great resource the newsgroup

sci.life-extension

available from http://groups.google....life-extension

is an excellent place to stop by if you need hard nosed scientific information on just about any supplement and many people share their regimens and are very knowledgeable about their utility.


My own research has led me to believe that more important than supplements are:

1) balanced diet
2) exercise
3) sleep
4) play

in other words.. a balanced life is first. Supplements can correct deficiencies, but the deficiencies are mostly a result of being out of balance because a person lifestyle is out of whack. Many of the processes which contribute to ageing cannot be readily addressed with supplements very well. Although they can have beneficial effects, without having the above in order first, they will be of limited usefulness.

The body seems to respond to mild stress in a very postive way in a process called hormesis. Mildly toxic compounds seem to stimulate the body to enhance it's repair mechanisms and endogenous anti-oxidant production. Red wine contains the molecule resveratrol which seems to operate in this way this as does the process the body undergoes when subjected to the stresses of caloric restriction. Basically, a balanced body, challenged, when combined with proper nutrition, seems to behave much better than an out of balance body, sitting on a sofa, eating potatoe chips. Go figure..

That being said, there are interesting supplements, AGE breakers for instance. AGE breakers inhibit the formation of and break the crosslinks that occur between protein carbonyl groups and can cause artery hardening and non-functional proteins to accumulate within the cell. Carnosine and benfotiamine are two very interesting supplements I take.

There's a lot of evidence about how supplements work on a cells in a petri dish, but often little to substantiate that there effects extend to their function in the body. In fact, the body has regulatory mechanisms in tissues and organs which are absent in the cells themselves. The level of anti-oxidants within the body is under tight regulation which explains why even with huge amounts of anti-oxidants we do not see an extension in lifespan although it is very obvious that free radicals are involved in aging.

There is a huge amount of information available on the newsgroup...

have fun..
;)

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