Hi, welcome back, you’ve been missed. Sorry to hear of all of your troubles and glad you are healthy again.
It is possible you had different bugs. Even if you had exactly the same bug, it is possible they had the worse case. Two people can get the same disease where one is barely symptomatic, and the other in the hospital or dead. It could have also slightly mutated to a more benign form by the time it got to you. There are many, many variables to consider.
Since you are allergic to eggs, it is important that the ‘herd’ around you is adequately vaccinated. I don’t think there is any study showing efficacy of vitamin supplements in most people. I would not include vegans on that list though, as anti-supplement as I am, I do think it is a good idea for vegans to take them.
mriana your post is rather long but let me just address two issues.
- The comment by your physician that “It can’t hurt” is ill informed and a bit naive but one I hear far too often from medical professionals who really haven’t thought the issue through. I’ve said this more times than i care to remember but I’ll repeat it here again. Anything you put in your body with the hope of getting a positive result will either have an effect or not but if it does it is biologically active and therefor its a drug. As such it is as likely to have unintended side effects as any other drug. This goes for absolutely everything whether its called a drug, a supplement, or a vitamin. The Vitamin E example I gave in a post above is a perfect example of the foolishness of the “It can’t hurt” approach. Sorry to harp on this but its a real pet peeve of mine and I am constantly in the backs of my colleagues about it but doctors are human too and sometimes fall into this trap just as easily as lay people do.
- Your concern about there not being any way to ethically do studies on these products is not correct. There is absolutely no reason to draw a distinction between vitamins/supplements and traditional drugs in our requirement for controlled studies. If there was a known benefit to using these things and we created a trial where we withheld beneficial supplement/vitamin from the control group then there would be an ethical issue but in the vast majority of cases we are talking about a substance that has no proven benefit so there is nothing unethical about doing controlled studies. In many cases there have been placebo controlled trials ( PCT’s). The reason you dont find as many PCT’s in the literature on supplements/vitamins is because the industry and their lap dog ( Orin Hatch) got the dietary supplement health and education act passed which essentially creates an artificial distinction between these products and what we consider traditional medicines and exempts the manufacturers of these products from having to do studies showing efficacy or safety. Since they aren’t required to do studies they spend virtually nothing on research.
Hi, welcome back, you've been missed. Sorry to hear of all of your troubles and glad you are healthy again.Thanks.
It is possible you had different bugs. Even if you had exactly the same bug, it is possible they had the worse case. Two people can get the same disease where one is barely symptomatic, and the other in the hospital or dead. It could have also slightly mutated to a more benign form by the time it got to you. There are many, many variables to consider.Yes, that was one of my thoughts as I pondered the immune system, I just could not articulate it or get it to that point in my head, though my mind was working on getting to the point of consideration.
Since you are allergic to eggs, it is important that the 'herd' around you is adequately vaccinated. I don't think there is any study showing efficacy of vitamin supplements in most people. I would not include vegans on that list though, as anti-supplement as I am, I do think it is a good idea for vegans to take them.Yes, I agree, but the head of the family I'm staying with told his family that it was just as well they do not get flu shots because, in his words, the medical scientists guessed wrong about this virus and it is very contagious, one can get it if they are standing within six feet of another person, thus the doctors who example patients with this flu need to wear masks, pseudo-science, myth, and other crap spewed from his mouth about this year's flu bug. I'm thinking, "Six feet huh? At least as far as one sends an uncovered cough or sneeze. Thanks for the conspiracy crap." BTW, he truly believes no germs at all can get through those cloth medical masks, not even the tiny spores of influenza viruses. He also believes there is a stomach flu too and no amount to explaining the difference between influenza (AKA flu, a respiratory virus) and a stomach virus, as well as stomach flu being a myth, will convince him differently. All he does is get angry and insists that I am wrong about stomach and flu viruses. It gets to the point of me saying, "Yeah, well, I come from generations of medical professionals and many a medical website will tell you the stomach flu is a myth" and him saying, "No, medical websites say stomach flu is real." I don't think he's every frequent reliable medical websites. I also agree, given how much I do feel better taking supplements, as opposed to when I do not, vegans, and I would add some vegetarians, like myself, probably should take them. My older son is not as restrictive as I am. He will eat chicken and some fish, such as sushi, but that is as far up on the food chain as he goes and while I do do dairy sometimes, the bulk of my diet is vegetables and grains, with some fruits, thus I'm almost vegan. I just cannot bring myself to eat another living being, other than plant sources and foods, like milk, that don't harm or kill the animal when taken from them. I get a lot of rubbing from true vegans about eating and drinking dairy products, with some saying it does harm them (when it really does not). I grew up on raw milk and even watched my grandfather milk a cow many times. Even he complained about the hormones and antibiotics added to store bought milk and would not feed any of us store bought milk. The same with wool products- I have the same arguments with vegans about sweaters and alike. Some even believe the sheep are harmed, even killed for their wool, and all I can do is shake my head and roll my eyes, as I think, "They are dangerously too restrictive with their diets." Considering supplements have made me feel healthier, I would say even vegetarians could be lacking and need supplements too. BTW, my grandfather even made butter out of the cow's milk too. There are studies about D3 and respiratory illnesses and I could hunt down the links, but it seems for every study that says it helps, there is a study that says it doesn't. I think it's one of those things that one has to decide for themselves, after reading the various studies, if they want to try D3 supplements or not.
Frankly, you couldn’t pay me to drink raw milk. It is a great vector for so many disease outbreaks here in CA, leading to deaths and debility. Did you know (for example) you could get tuberculosis from raw cows milk if the cow has the disease? Pasteurization is at least as great a discovery as vaccines. And you’d have to check with Macgyver, I don’t think every vaccination is made from/via eggs.
There are studies about D3 and respiratory illnesses and I could hunt down the links, but it seems for every study that says it helps, there is a study that says it doesn't. I think it's one of those things that one has to decide for themselves, after reading the various studies, if they want to try D3 supplements or not.I've actually searched for this and there really are no good PCT's that show a reduction in respiratory illnesses with the use of Vit D. This illustrates a problem we have with medical reporting today. Lab studies have shown that vitamin D does play a role in the immune system. Observational studies have also shown a correlation between lower vitamin D levels and increased rates of respiratory illness. To anyone who is not well trained in science and hears these statements on the news it would appear perhaps that there is strong evidence to support using Vit D to reduce respiratory illnesses. The problem is that these sorts of studies are subject to all sorts of bias and error and neither answers the question we are really asking. Will people have fewer or less severe respiratory illnesses if we give them extra Vit D? To answer that question you always need to do a well designed PCT of adequate size and it must be reproducible by other investigators. Often when this is done, the theory that looked promising in the preliminary lab and observational studies turns out not to be supported by the PCT's. The mistake the media and the public make is to put al these studies on equal ground and then say "well the scientists are contradicting themselves so we have to decide for ourselves". The fact is that these studies are not equal. The PCT's are the gold standard. They are the studies that actually answer the question that is being asked and when the results are in and then confirmed by additional PCT's there will usually be a consensus within the scientific community. the results of all the preliminary studies are then irrelevant. As I said, its naive to assume these things can do no harm and I would no more recommend supplemental vitamins than I would recommend any other substance for which there was no supporting evidence for efficacy and safety. If we were to use the standard that is currently applied to supplements and apply it across the board we may as well recommend the consumption of dust bunnies as a way to treat the common cold. Edit: Spelling error
And you'd have to check with Macgyver, I don't think every vaccination is made from/via eggs.Both the killed and live attenuated vaccine are indeed produced in eggs. The fact is though that most people who claim to have egg allergies really are not allergic to eggs. By an egg allergy we are referring to a severe true allergic response such as hives or anaphylaxis. Many people confuse egg intolerance such as an upset stomach or increased gas for an allergy which it is not. In fact many of the people who claim to have an egg allergy regularly consume products that are made with eggs with no ill effects. Its possible to get tested by an allergist if one wants to clarify the issue. There was a new flu vaccine called Flublok which was just approved by the FDA last month which does not use eggs or the actual flu virus. To produce this vaccine they use huge vats of insect cells which have been genetically altered to produce proteins normally found on the surface of the flu virus. The method allows quicker vaccine production and since no eggs there are no risks to those who are truly allergic to eggs. The vaccine may not be as effective as the existing vaccine however and will probably not be as widely available for some time.
Frankly, you couldn't pay me to drink raw milk. It is a great vector for so many disease outbreaks here in CA, leading to deaths and debility. Did you know (for example) you could get tuberculosis from raw cows milk if the cow has the disease? Pasteurization is at least as great a discovery as vaccines. And you'd have to check with Macgyver, I don't think every vaccination is made from/via eggs.I didn't say every vaccination is made from eggs, just the flu vaccine. Anyway, I grew up on raw milk, but since I've left home, I've most drunk store bought skim milk, despite my grandfather's criticisms about it when I was a child. Children often do not have a choice in what the adults raising them feed them, but he would always clean the cows utters before milking her and often careful concerning how he handled the milk. I don't think any of us ever got sick from Bossy's milk. Even their garden was organic. They used ladybugs to ward off bugs and avoided pesticides as much as they possibly could, with the exception of tomatoes, in which my grandmother said she used the product Seven, and the eggs were from free roaming chickens without a rooster around. My grandmother died 6 years ago at the age of 94 (my grandfather committed suicide when he was 75, so I can't say how long he might have lived given one of his cousins lived to be 99). I'm not afraid of raw milk, depending on how it's handled, but I must admit, if I have an option, I'd choose store bought milk any day.
And you'd have to check with Macgyver, I don't think every vaccination is made from/via eggs.Both the killed and live attenuated vaccine are indeed produced in eggs. The fact is though that most people who claim to have egg allergies really are not allergic to eggs. By an egg allergy we are referring to a severe true allergic response such as hives or anaphylaxis. I get hives from even one egg and the more eggs I consume, the worst the hives. One serving of quiche or pumpkin/sweet potato pie alone makes me miserable with hives. I don't want to find out what two servings of quiche will do to me.
There was a new flu vaccine called Flublok which was just approved by the FDA last month which does not use eggs or the actual flu virus. To produce this vaccine they use huge vats of insect cells which have been genetically altered to produce proteins normally found on the surface of the flu virus. The method allows quicker vaccine production and since no eggs there are no risks to those who are truly allergic to eggs. The vaccine may not be as effective as the existing vaccine however and will probably not be as widely available for some time.I'm waiting for more info on this vaccine before I jump in and become a guinea pig. BTW, I was tested by an allergist in the late 70s or early 80s and they found me to be allergic to almost everything except animal dander. The tester dragged his fellow co-workers over to gawk at my skin reactions, esp the animal dander. I felt like a lab rat. Come to find out years later, those born with animals in the home, esp into a farm family, weren't allergic to other animals, just what the animals got on their fur. About the only thing I'm not allergic to, is other animals.
the Vitamin E in prostate cancer has actually been a good teaching moment that I often use to explain to patients why they should not be checking their Vitamin D levels and taking huge supplements to get into the normal range. The Vitamin E story is a good parallel. 20 years ago when all we had were retrospective studies lots of men started taking vitamin E to reduce their risk of prostate cancer. Now that we have good prospective double blind studies it is clear that Vit E actually increases the risk of prostate cancer.Are you by any chance referring to the SELECT study which used alpha tocopherol instead of mixed tocopherols, including gamma tocopherol? The negative result comes from the author's choice to use alpha tocopherol instead of gamma tocopherol. The former displaces the latter. The latter is the form of vitamin E that is effective in reducing the risks of cardiac ecents and prostate cancer. This was known before the study - one has to winder what would motivate someone to study something already known to not work? Good prospective double blind studies are of no value if the designers are so negligent. I hope some day someone sues these "researchers".
Are you by any chance referring to the SELECT study which used alpha tocopherol instead of mixed tocopherols, including gamma tocopherol? The negative result comes from the author's choice to use alpha tocopherol instead of gamma tocopherol. The former displaces the latter. The latter is the form of vitamin E that is effective in reducing the risks of cardiac ecents and prostate cancer. This was known before the study - one has to winder what would motivate someone to study something already known to not work? Good prospective double blind studies are of no value if the designers are so negligent. I hope some day someone sues these "researchers".Yes it was the SELECT study published in OCt 2011 in JAMA. Of course you have a well designed placebo controlled study to support your claim for the benefits of mixed tocopherols? This is a very common ploy of the supplement industry. When a study is done that doesn't support the use of their product they claim that it wasn't the correct preparation or wasn't administered properly even though they have no good placebo controlled trials to show that their particular preparation or method of administration would result in a different outcome. They are like kids who when they start losing they change the rules of the game. I would be happy to read the studies if you care to supply the references but I am not aware of any PCT's that support your claim.
Yes it was the SELECT study published in OCt 2011 in JAMA. Of course you have a well designed placebo controlled study to support your claim for the benefits of mixed tocopherols? This is a very common ploy of the supplement industry. When a study is done that doesn't support the use of their product they claim that it wasn't the correct preparation or wasn't administered properly even though they have no good placebo controlled trials to show that their particular preparation or method of administration would result in a different outcome. They are like kids who when they start losing they change the rules of the game. I would be happy to read the studies if you care to supply the references but I am not aware of any PCT's that support your claim.One thing the this study DOES support is confusion. The fact that they don't discriminate between different forms of Vit E simply means; a. They don't know what they are doing b. They are deliberately misleading the public Its one thing to limit what can be said on the labels of vitamins and supplements - which I agree with. It's quite another to instigate media campaigns against them based on misinformation.
One thing the this study DOES support is confusion. The fact that they don't discriminate between different forms of Vit E simply means; a. They don't know what they are doing b. They are deliberately misleading the public Its one thing to limit what can be said on the labels of vitamins and supplements - which I agree with. It's quite another to instigate media campaigns against them based on misinformation.Lets start with the fact that you didnt answer my question. Where are the PCT's supporting your position? SELECT was a PCT study of over 35,000 individuals coordinated over a 10 year period. It was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and involved over 4,000 researchers at 500 institutions. I don't know what was I thinking asking you to do 2 minutes of research to back up your claim? You clearly have more credentials and data to support your opinion than these folks did.
Lets start with the fact that you didnt answer my question. Where are the PCT's supporting your position? SELECT was a PCT study of over 35,000 individuals coordinated over a 10 year period. It was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute and involved over 4,000 researchers at 500 institutions. I don't know what was I thinking asking you to do 2 minutes of research to back up your claim? You clearly have more credentials and data to support your opinion than these folks did.hmm.. sounds like an appeal to authority. It makes no difference if a zillion researchers were involved at 100,000 institutions. I'm not making a claim, except for the claim that this study is flawed.
hmm.. sounds like an appeal to authority. It makes no difference if a zillion researchers were involved at 100,000 institutions. I'm not making a claim, except for the claim that this study is flawed.Its not an appeal to authority its a statement of fact. You claim the authors of this study don't know what they are talking about. I am simply pointing out that this is a very esteemed and educated group of men and women who participated in this study and you are who? This very same group of people carried out a meticulously designed study to discover whether Vitamin E might indeed help reduce Prostate cancer death and when the results didnt show any benefit they did what all good scientist do. They accepted the facts. On the flip side we have you. A person of no known expertise on this subject who has done no personal research and when asked to at least come up with studies that others may have done to support your claim ( and yes you did make a claim) you have been unable to even do that. You claimed that these researchers used the wrong form of Vitamin E and that the correct form of vitamin E would have resulted in a reduction in both Prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease. Again, you make these claims with no PCT's to back them up. in fact you've sited no studies at all PCT or otherwise. In case you are unfamiliar with the concept of a rational debate, you're supposed to actually present evidence and data to support your point of view.
BTW, I was tested by an allergist in the late 70s or early 80s and they found me to be allergic to almost everything except animal dander. The tester dragged his fellow co-workers over to gawk at my skin reactions, esp the animal dander. I felt like a lab rat. Come to find out years later, those born with animals in the home, esp into a farm family, weren't allergic to other animals, just what the animals got on their fur. About the only thing I'm not allergic to, is other animals.I too, have a very long list of allergies which cause me to have either acute asthma attacks or anaphylaxis...documented by medical testing. I was allergic to eggs in my youth, but fortunately, I outgrew that one. I also had the misfortune of developing an allergy to a medication which almost destroyed my career. My other allergies include tetracyline, cat, cow, horse, rabbit, bird and some dog danders. I am also allergic to the dander of one of my brothers. I am allergic to lamb, melons( my favorite fruits), eggplant, cashews, barley(try to find bread without it these days), hops, marijuana (they test you for hemp allergy), dust mites, roaches and some grasses. Most of these allergies I knew, and testing confirmed them. Those are only the ones I recall off the top of my head. I keep a list to give to new doctors.
Its not an appeal to authority its a statement of fact. You claim the authors of this study don't know what they are talking about. I am simply pointing out that this is a very esteemed and educated group of men and women who participated in this study and you are who? This very same group of people carried out a meticulously designed study to discover whether Vitamin E might indeed help reduce Prostate cancer death and when the results didnt show any benefit they did what all good scientist do. They accepted the facts. On the flip side we have you. A person of no known expertise on this subject who has done no personal research and when asked to at least come up with studies that others may have done to support your claim ( and yes you did make a claim) you have been unable to even do that. You claimed that these researchers used the wrong form of Vitamin E and that the correct form of vitamin E would have resulted in a reduction in both Prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease. Again, you make these claims with no PCT's to back them up. in fact you've sited no studies at all PCT or otherwise. In case you are unfamiliar with the concept of a rational debate, you're supposed to actually present evidence and data to support your point of view.This group is "esteemed" by whom? Certainly not me LOL. If that isn't an appeal to authority I don't know what is. It appears that 'Vit E' is in fact a misnomer, since what it refers to is actually a group of compounds. This study is flawed in the sense that it fails to take this into account right from the outset. A short search of the internet reveals several sources that indicate an important difference between forms of aspects of Vit E. and there is research that indicates that; 1. Taking only the alpha tocopherol form of vitamin E displaces gamma tocopherol in the body 2. High gamma tocopherol blood levels show a significant reduction in prostate cancer risk see here] So if we reduce gamma tocopherol by taking alpha tocopherol then it seems the SELECT study has actually corroborated the above. Yet you maintain "Now that we have good prospective double blind studies it is clear that Vit E actually increases the risk of prostate cancer." This is clearly ambiguous at best and false at worst.
Its not an appeal to authority at all, its a matter of training and expertise ( or in your case the lack of it) and its what I have had to resort to since you refuse to have an argument based on data and evidence. All you present here is your opinion so what I am pointing out is that your opinion means little when you are going up against thousands of professionals who have far more training than you do. Whether they are esteemed by you or not is really irrelevant. These people have done their homework. You have done nothing from what I can see except shoot your mouth off.
You need to stop making claims that you don’t back up with citations of any sort. In addition, if the best you can come up with is studies that only reference basic science and metabolic pathways then we are going to get nowhere. The medical literature is littered with ideas that looked logical based on an understanding of isolated metabolic pathways but those pathways are never isolated in the body. Basic science is just that “basic”. Its meant as a starting point not a place from which to draw conclusions or make recommendations. Every theory that is based on that approach must always be taken with a large grain of salt. The gold standard for evidence based medicine and advice should always be the PCT. Without PCT’s any claims of benefit or safety are just wishful thinking and in some cases they are downright dangerous. You continue to claim that the researchers tested the wrong form of Vit E and fail to provide any evidence that there would be a different outcome if they had used something else.
One last point. Putting aside the paranoia of the supplement industry and its supporters for a moment, the fact is that the SELECT study was run by people who were hoping they WOULD find a benefit. A great deal of time, effort, and money was spent on this study. We all know the supplement industry thinks that conventional medicine has it in for them but the plain fact is that we all want the same thing… that is to help people get better. The difference is that conventional practitioners require evidence and are not willing to role the dice with half baked ideas. No one in their right mind is going to spend the time and money just to disprove something because they have an ax to grind. There are too many important things that require those resources. They spent the time and effort here hoping they would find something useful but unfortunately they didn’t. You can write to the authors of the study and ask them why they chose this particular form of Vit E but until you do you are speaking from ignorance and making assumptions based on prejudice and preconceptions and wasting our time.
You continue to claim that the researchers tested the wrong form of Vit E and fail to provide any evidence that there would be a different outcome if they had used something else.Did you not see the link in my post? I can see I'm wasting my time here anyway, Center for Inquiry - what a joke!
Did you not see the link in my post? I can see I'm wasting my time here anyway, Center for Inquiry - what a joke!I hadn't seen your link previously. The study you site is a retrospective analysis. Its helpful and explains the reason for your question, but your approach is incorrect. Rather than assuming the authors of the SELECT study didn't know what they were doing a better approach would have been to correspond with them and ask why that particular preparation was chosen. It is possible and even likely that there is other literature you are unaware of that convinced the researchers to use this particular version of Vit E. Instead you jump to the conclusion that these people who spend their lives doing research just aren't as smart as you. Of course that's easier but at the same time not very productive if you're really looking for answers, but then you're not are you? Center for Inquiry isn't the joke. The joke is you pretending to actually be interested in inquiry.
I know plenty of fairly skeptical people who have fallen for the antioxidant marketing ploy.
I have to explain it a little more carefully than the usual myth-busting.
Just an excuse to charge $5 for a bottle of fruit juice.