Excess Vitamins & Pca

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ali...modsrc=reuters

This may be the article.......

Hum............

No vitamins, no drinking, no meat, no smoking...........hum......

John Loomis



WASHINGTON - There's more worrisome news about vitamins: Taking too many may
increase men's risk of dying from prostate cancer.


The study, being published Wednesday, doesn't settle the issue. But it is
the biggest yet to suggest high-dose multivitamins may harm the prostate,
and the latest chapter in the confusing quest to tell whether taking various
vitamins really helps a variety of conditions - or is a waste of money, or
worse.

Government scientists turned to a study tracking the diet and health of
almost 300,000 men. About a third reported taking a daily multivitamin, and
5 percent were heavy users, swallowing the pills more than seven times a
week.

Within five years of the study's start, 10,241 men had been diagnosed with
prostate cancer. Some 1,476 had advanced cancer; 179 died.

Heavy multivitamin users were almost twice as likely to get fatal prostate
cancer as men who never took the pills, concludes the study in Wednesday's
Journal of the

National Cancer Institute.

Here's the twist: Overall, the researchers found no link between
multivitamin use and early-stage prostate cancer.

The researchers speculate that perhaps high-dose vitamins had little effect
until a tumor appeared, and then could spur its growth.

While similar but smaller studies have suggested a link, too, more rigorous
research is needed, caution the National Cancer Institute scientists. This
newest study involves men who voluntarily took vitamins, and those most at
risk - perhaps because they had a family history of the disease - may have
been more likely to take the pills in hopes of avoiding their fate.

Still, "the findings lend further credence to the possibility of harm
associated with increased use of supplements," Dr. Christian Gluud of
Copenhagen University Hospital and Dr. Goran Bjelakovic of Serbia's
University of Nis wrote in an accompanying editorial.

"From Bob" <IATROGENIC@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:18290-464A303D-774@storefull-3318.bay.webtv.net...
> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ali...modsrc=reuters
>

WTF? Damned if you do, damned of if you don't?

"From Bob" <IATROGENIC@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:18290-464A303D-774@storefull-3318.bay.webtv.net...
> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ali...modsrc=reuters
>

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ali...modsrc=reuters

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ali...modsrc=reuters

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ali...modsrc=reuters

===> something happen. first time it sent empty responses.

well, back to the subject. i guess we will have to file this report
with all of the others like:

- is salt good or bad for you?

- is coffee good or bad for you?

- is tea good or bad for you?

the next thing they will say is that living on this earth will cause
death in the long run...

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
http://community.webtv.net/PALMER_ENT/doc

Hello, all:

Please, *please* make sure you read this paragraph, too:

> While similar but smaller studies have suggested a link, too, more rigorous
> research is needed, caution the National Cancer Institute scientists. This
> newest study involves men who voluntarily took vitamins, and those most at
> risk - perhaps because they had a family history of the disease - may have
> been more likely to take the pills in hopes of avoiding their fate.

There are many spurious correlations. For example: you can find the
number of TV sets per 1000 citizens for countries worldwide, and also
find the childhood (under 5 years old) mortality rate for those same
countries. You will find a high negative correlation; that is,
countries with a lot of TVs per 1000 citizens have a low childhood
mortality rate, while countries with a low number of TVs per 1000 have
a high childhood mortality rate. So, we have a correlation. Would
taking away TVs in America cause the US childhood mortality rate to
rise?

Of course not! Clearly socio-economic factors are at work, affecting
both variables. It would be a more humorous example if it didn't
involve one of the more depressing statistics around.

Neverthess, this is one of my favorite example from my statistics
course. The obvious point is this: *By itself, correlation _never_
implies a causal link.* I tell my students that if they remember
nothing else from the course, that they should remember this. (BTW,
the inspiration for this example is from Allan Rossman's *Workshop
Statistics*. He uses countries in Africa. The data I use in my class
is for all the member countries of the UN, and is collected from the
UNICEF publication *State of the World's Children*.)

Think about that last sentence in the paragraph from the article:
"... those most at risk - perhaps because they had a family history of
the disease - may have been more likely to take the pills in hopes of
avoiding their fate." Does that not describe several of us in this
newsgroup? A man who watches his father and/or his grandfather go
through PCa starts taking steps to avoid it, possibly including taking
a multivitamin supplement. So, men like that are among the group
being studied, and thus the subsample is possibly already skewed
toward having a higher percentage of men with PCa.

Is it worth further investigation? Probably. If the presence of too
much of a particular vitamin triggers prostate cancer, we surely
should find that out. But the medical community is nowhere near
answering a question like that.

Please do not overreact to studies like this.

--charlie

From Bob wrote:
> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ali...modsrc=reuters
>
It is important to note that it was excessive use of vitamins that was
associated with metastatic prostate cancer. That doesn't mean that men
who used vitamins in moderation also had an increased risk.

It is also important to note that studies of this kind can be
misleading. For example, there could be some factor which both
increased the risk of metastatic prostate cancer and also increased the
frequency with which men used vitamins, although I have to admit I can't
think of one. As the article said, this is just reason for further study.

I use vitamins, but I try to be careful not to overdo it. This can be
hard to do sometimes because those who package vitamins keep putting
more and more things into them. So you have to read labels carefully
and make sure you don't overdose on any particular component.

Selenium is an example of something some of us take regularly.
Researchers originally tried to determine if selenium supplements would
prevent recurrence of skin cancer. It didn't, but they were surprised
to find that the incidence of some major cancers, including prostate
cancer, was reduced. Of course, those results could be misleading for
all the usual reasons. To establish whether or not selenium is
effective, a double blind prospective study was instituted. Here men
are divided at random into two groups, one of which takes the
supplements (200 micrograms of selenium and 400 units of Vitamin E) and
the other takes a placebo. I don't believe the results are in yet.

Of course, it could turn out that selenium does protect you from getting
prostate cancer in the first place but if you get it anyway, it may make
it worse. Let's hope the ongoing study settles the matter in the not
too distant future.