5 replies to this topic

[opales]

Lowering homocysteine with supplemental vitamin B complex does not help in preventing heart attacks etc. with patients vascular disease or diabetes, and in fact INCREASES the risk of recurrent cardiac events.

http://content.nejm....Moa060900v1.pdf
http://content.nejm....Moa055227v1.pdf
http://content.nejm....JMe068060v2.pdf

Edited by opales, 14 March 2006 - 11:38 AM.

[ajnast4r]

they forgot about the other b vitamins....

this has been covered many times in this forum. when vitamins appear together in 'complex' in nature... they must be administered together. when you single 2 or 3 out of 10, and give them in massive doses... you are asking for problems.

those doses are way way way more than what you would need to lower homocysteine anyway

[scottl]

"The evidence is clear that this type of vitamin therapy is really not effective in reversing or benefiting advanced vascular disease,"


Once you have damage to the artery wall, there are enough molecular cascades to continue/propagate the damage. The question is what is going on the start the wall damage, and in the early stages. I would not have expected any effects in this patient population.

ANother study looking at patients with severe disease and concluding no benefit...surprise, surprise.

Edited by scottl, 14 March 2006 - 04:09 PM.

[Pablo M]

I agree with Scott. Lowering homocysteine is a preventative measure.

[scottl]

And it is worth noting the systemic bias of some eople who study these things (well OK or they are not too bright)...gee calcium and vit D does't help bones...wait or our study is f'ed up:

Bone care: It's still basic - USA Today, 3/5/06 - "the postmenopausal women in the study weren't typical. Most who were assigned to take supplements also got lots of calcium and vitamin D in their diets, so adding pills didn't make much difference. And many who were assigned placebos also took supplements on their own, something researchers allowed ... It's not surprising there was a blunted response ... The National Osteoporosis Foundation saw nothing in the study to change its endorsement of calcium and vitamin D"
http://www.usatoday....bone-care_x.htm

And I have to check out the study that "showed" glucosamine was useless...I've heard they used end stage arthritis patients also.

[bgwowk]

ajnast4r wrote:

this has been covered many times in this forum. when vitamins appear together in 'complex' in nature... they must be administered together. when you single 2 or 3 out of 10, and give them in massive doses... you are asking for problems.

This is beside the point. The vitamins given at the doses given were the equivalent of a homocysteine lowering drug. Homocysteine was lowered and there was no beneficial outcome, proving rather persuasively that lowering homocysteine "is not effective in reversing or benefiting advanced vascular disease." The only possible alternative explanation is that disease-enhancing side effects of "the drug" were so severe that they overwhelmed benefits of lower homocysteine, which is very unlikely.

Scottl, does the homocysteine hypothesis involve a specific role in vascular lesion formation?

---BrianW