Vitamins 'increase cholesterol'

"Diarmid Logan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

news.bbc.co.uk3673365.stmOpen ↗ Vitamins
'increase cholesterol'

That's is indeed strange since vitamin c/ascorbate inhibits
HMG-CoA reductase, which is targeted by the recent anti
cholesterol drugs to lower cholesterol?

(from vitamin c foundation) Inhibition of HMG-CoA reductase
activity by ascorbic acid
(jbc.org7127Open ↗)

vitamincfoundation.orgstatin.htmOpen ↗

NATURE'S PERFECT STATIN®

"I've not only read Alice in Wonderland, I've been there..."
-- Owen Fonorow

The hot selling statins, such as Lipitor® and Zocor®, lower
cholesterol by blocking the coenzyme HMG-CoA reductase. When
vitamin C levels are low, the body compensates and
manufactures more cholesterol; when levels are high, the
vitamin inhibits HMG-CoA reductase, lowering cholesterol.

thincs.orgthincs.orgOpen ↗ The International Network of
Cholesterol Skeptics For decades, enormous human and
financial resources have been wasted on the cholesterol
campaign, more promising research areas have been neglected,
producers and manufacturers of animal food all over the
world have suffered economically, and millions of healthy
people have been frightened and badgered into eating a
tedious and flavorless diet or into taking potentially
dangerous drugs for the rest of their lives. As the
scientific evidence in support of the cholesterol campaign
is non-existent, we consider it important to stop it as soon
as possible.

Anth

[snip]

Diarmid Logan said:

Vitamins 'increase cholesterol'

Vitamins could actually increase levels of "bad
cholesterol", researchers have suggested.

It had been thought that vitamins could protect the heart.

But New York University researchers found vitamins
including E, C and beta carotene stop the liver breaking
down an early form of bad cholesterol.

Heh. So JC is probably going to outlive all of us.

Marsha/Ohio

On 4 May 2004 11:34:59 -0700, [email hidden] (Diarmid Logan)

Quoted message said:

news.bbc.co.uk3673365.stmOpen ↗

Vitamins 'increase cholesterol'

snip...

Quoted message said:

"Before any clear conclusions can be drawn from this study
we would await the results of larger randomized controlled
clinical trials."

Well, yeah. When will these happen?

I need to read the original article but it seems they gave
these as individual vitamins (at what dosages) in a rat
model. Relevance to humans is questionable. Relevance of
using individual antioxidants when a balanced approach is
more physicologically relevant is questionable. E.g., beta
carotene along in HIV infection is worthless; a combination
in the form of a multivitamin is MUCH more efficacious.

Also, I would want to know the dosages given.

Frankly, I'd say any putative risk is outweighed by
benefits. And indeed, I cannot see ANY data in the
literature that suggests that antioxidant use increases
LDL, which would be expected if their data have any
meaning to humans. To the contrary, some data suggest
improvement in HDL.

This is no better than a supplement company touting the
benefits of a nutrient or botanical based on a test tube
study. It does NOT help those of us trying to make
appropriate health and treatment choices. I have no
intention whatsover of giving up my daily use of a potent
multi based on this kind of research.

George M. Carter

(bolenreport.combolenreport.comOpen ↗)

This study and report is predicated on the assumption that
natural lipoproteins are "harmful." Forgetting the problems
of statistical association (toaster ovens are also a risk
factor statistically correlated with heart disease) this
report defies logic. Antioxidants raise a particular
lipoprotein, thus the authors conclude, on that basis alone,
that antioxidants may cause heart disease? This is news? A
gross generalization based on a single finding?

If there are harmful lipoproteins, why did they evolve? Why
do vitamins such as vitamins E and Coenzyme Q10 require the
"bad" LDL cholesterol in order to be transported throughout
the body? How is it that vitamin D is made out of
cholesterol from sunlight? The notion that antioxidants
should be avoided may be good for the sales of
pharmaceuticals, but such "news" leaves physicians, already
poorly trained in nutrition, in the dark. - Editor

Anth

"Diarmid Logan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

news.bbc.co.uk3673365.stmOpen ↗

Vitamins 'increase cholesterol'

Vitamins could actually increase levels of "bad
cholesterol", researchers have suggested.

It had been thought that vitamins could protect the heart.

But New York University researchers found vitamins
including E, C and beta carotene stop the liver breaking
down an early form of bad cholesterol.

Writing in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the
researchers say their findings mean they cannot recommend
that people use the vitamins.

The vitamins are antioxidants, thought to be beneficial
because they attack free radicals, produced when the body
fights infection, which inflict damage on the body's
tissues.

But studies carried out by the researchers at the
university's school of medicine found that antioxidants
actually hampered the body's fight against damaging
cholesterol.

Normally, liver cells break down a key protein in harmful
lipoproteins such as VLDL (very low density lipoprotein)
which means they cannot be converted into a form of LDL
that can enter the bloodstream.

However, in laboratory tests, the New York researchers
found vitamin E, C and beta carotene prevented this
process taking place in liver cells.

Further tests in mice and rat livers showed vitamin E
prevented this "breakdown" process taking place, meaning
the liver destroyed fewer lipoproteins.

Dr Edward Fisher, director of the Lipid Treatment &
Research Center at the NYU Medical Center, said: "Our
study is the first to document this association between
antioxidant vitamins and VLDL cholesterol.

"It does appear that antioxidant vitamins may be
potentially harmful for the heart based on their ability
to increase the secretion of VLDL in the liver cells and
in the mice that we studied."

But he added: "More studies are needed to back up our
findings. Until more data becomes available, we can't make
any recommendations about whether people should not use
these vitamins."

However he said there was evidence from other animal
studies that antioxidants could have beneficial effects on
other parts of the body, such as protecting the arteries
from atherosclerosis and the pancreas and other organs
from damage caused by diabetes.

Writing in the journal, Dr Ronald Krauss of Children's
Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California, added
that, although there was "considerable" evidence for the
benefits of antioxidants, "the potential for unintended
outcomes of oxidant therapy should serve as a warning
against proceeding with such treatment in the absence of
clinical-trial evidence of benefit and safety".

Belinda Linden, head of Medical Information at the British
Heart Foundation (BHF), told BBC News Online: "Most
research tends to suggest that supplementation with
antioxidant vitamins, although not beneficial, does not
lead to undue harm.

"Before any clear conclusions can be drawn from this study
we would await the results of larger randomized controlled
clinical trials."

[email hidden] (Diarmid Logan) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

<snip>

Quoted message said:

"Before any clear conclusions can be drawn from this study
we would await the results of larger randomized controlled
clinical trials."

I love the way they always come down to the last conclusion.
Wouldn't it be amazing to see a really good, well done study
that comes out and says "We now know enough about this
particular area of science that we can successfully treat
the conditions involved and we can now spend our scarce and
important research dollars in some other more pressing area
of science."

Now that would be earth shattering.

It is amazing how failure to prove anything just leads to
more research ($$) that continues to fail to prove anything
that then requires even more research ($$$$) that will fail
to prove anything. At what point do we expect to have these
researchers actually come up with something that is useful
and can be used at face value?

Just had to rant a bit.

TC