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77% Reduction in Cataracts in Vit C SUPPLEMENT Group

Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2005 10:10 am
by ofonorow
First published in 1997, this is another study entirely favorable to vitamin C suplementation.

Women who took vitamin C supplements for at least 10 years proved only 23 percent as likely to develop cataracts as women who received the vitamin only in their diet, a new study finds.

See the following news report: http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc ... 7/fob2.htm

Allen Taylor of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston has been probing the relationship between cataracts and antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamin C, for more than a decade. Initially working with eye tissue in the laboratory, he and his colleagues have shown that vitamin C can slow the chemical reactions that make certain lens proteins clump together, causing cataracts. The group then demonstrated that giving animals the vitamin retarded cataract development.


It is interesting to contrast this result with the warnings of a few doctors who believe that the statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, when taken in combination with a common antibiotic, can triple the cataract risk.

See: http://www.kcom.edu/spotlight/cholesterol_cataracts.htm

Yet both vitamin C and the statin drugs lower cholesterol by inhibiting the same liver enzyme HMG-CoA Reductase:

See: http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/261/16/7127

New section on clinical studies

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 6:34 am
by Dolev
Owen,

Thank you for this forum, it's a wonderful place to share ideas and experiences. This section on new research is especially important. We Don Quixote types need to be able to counter all the nonsense.

Blessings,
Dolev

Re: 77% Reduction in Cataracts in Vit C SUPPLEMENT Group

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 5:16 am
by paulingadmirer
Owen,
What is your take on the article:
* High-dose vitamin C may boost women's cataract risk

within the article in the Vitamin C Foundation home web page?
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertai ... z0kWmIgFEt

Paul

Re: 77% Reduction in Cataracts in Vit C SUPPLEMENT Group

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 5:14 pm
by Magister22
paulingadmirer wrote:Owen,
What is your take on the article:
* High-dose vitamin C may boost women's cataract risk

within the article in the Vitamin C Foundation home web page?
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertai ... z0kWmIgFEt

Paul

Here is an interesting take on this study. I had occasion to discuss it with my doctor in December. He is very mainstream and skeptical of supplement use. He and I spar verbally about it for a few minutes every year at my annual physical. So I was suprised when he just shrugged off the study, saying that it was irrelevant even if true.

He said that cataract surgery is so simple and risk free these days it doesn't matter if Vitamin C contributes to their development. Given the many other benefits of Vitamin C, he said it was fine just to keep taking the supplement - and if necessary just get the surgery some day. I was amazed - this from a doctor who practically worships at the altar of the double blind, placebo controlled experiment. Maybe there's hope for him yet.

-- Magister22

Re: 77% Reduction in Cataracts in Vit C SUPPLEMENT Group

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 11:41 pm
by Lemonaid
Vitamin C won't make your doc any money. In fact wide spread use would put some doctors out of a job.

Re: 77% Reduction in Cataracts in Vit C SUPPLEMENT Group

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 4:49 am
by godsilove
Magister22 wrote:
paulingadmirer wrote:Owen,
What is your take on the article:
* High-dose vitamin C may boost women's cataract risk

within the article in the Vitamin C Foundation home web page?
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertai ... z0kWmIgFEt

Paul

Here is an interesting take on this study. I had occasion to discuss it with my doctor in December. He is very mainstream and skeptical of supplement use. He and I spar verbally about it for a few minutes every year at my annual physical. So I was suprised when he just shrugged off the study, saying that it was irrelevant even if true.

He said that cataract surgery is so simple and risk free these days it doesn't matter if Vitamin C contributes to their development. Given the many other benefits of Vitamin C, he said it was fine just to keep taking the supplement - and if necessary just get the surgery some day. I was amazed - this from a doctor who practically worships at the altar of the double blind, placebo controlled experiment. Maybe there's hope for him yet.

-- Magister22


Why is this surprising? Any good clinician weighs the benefits of an intervention with the risks.

Furthermore, the evidence that vitamin C increases the risk of cataracts is still fairly weak. On the other hand, a dose of 500mg of vitamin C per day does not increase overall mortality or mortality from leading causes like cardiovascular disease and cancer according to randomized trial data - so it is safe to take.

Re: 77% Reduction in Cataracts in Vit C SUPPLEMENT Group

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 11:20 am
by ofonorow
paulingadmirer wrote:Owen,
What is your take on the article:
* High-dose vitamin C may boost women's cataract risk

within the article in the Vitamin C Foundation home web page?
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertai ... z0kWmIgFEt

Paul

It is hard to keep up. The next book attempts to document the campaign to discredit nutrients by having phony studies appear that have exactly the opposite findings from other studies. See:
http://internetwks.com/owen/taleoftwo.htm (2004) for an overview of this issue. Who but super-rich pharmaceutical interests have the means and motive for such a clever (and perverse) thing? These negative stories are widely publicized and in my opinion are for the consumption of medical doctors and those who are like-minded.

As to what I really think, I think it is highly likely, even certain that high dose vitamin C protects from cataracts and it is highly likely, even certain that drugs, especially statins when combined with common antibiotics, rapidly cause cataracts. Drug companies want to keep doctors from knowing this.

I will edit and list other articles that I wrote a long time ago after noticing all the "phony" health news articles in the media, while at the same time they ignored Pauling's cardiovascular theory entirely that we were trying to interest them in.

1996: http://internetwks.com/owen/counter.htm

2001 http://internetwks.com/owen/fakenews.htm