"Vitamins linked to breast cancer" (What?!!)

a medical guy i listen to on satellite radio is a big fan of vitamins, but not necessarily multivitamins

he would prefer that people get checked out for specific deficiencies and take what they need, most vitamins will simply get peed away (that wonderful bright yellow vitamin urine, the most expensive pee in the world as he calls it) but some build up in the fatty tissues, if i remember correctly he used the acronym ADEK, for vitamins A, D, E and K (Potassium)

he suggests a balanced diet over supplements were ever possible

the radio guy, isn't sponsored by anyone, and doesn't even get paid for his show (though he would like to at least get the cost of making it covered)

he does the show about three times a month, in his day to day practice he's a hospice doctor in Tennessee

i like his style and trust his info more than some conglomerate radio doctor

Vitamin K and potassium are two different things..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_K
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium

interesting

i still think he's talking about Potassium, but maybe i'll twitter him and get a clarification

yeah actually the periodic chart list potassium as K, kinda easy to get that confused.

Reading worrisome reports and media's bad-news-reporting causes cancer.

cancer is the leading cause of statistics.

it is Vitamin K he was talking about, so you have to be careful with A,D,E & K, they're important vitamins but as they are fat soluble they can build up and cause problems

more info here

http://completewellbeing.com/article/a-d-e-k-the-vital-vitamins/

Copied from an English newspaper this morning..

A daily dose of vitamins and minerals could help keep breast cancer at bay.

Those who take multi-vitamins are up to 30 per cent less likely to develop the disease than others, a study of more than 700 women found.

Boosting calcium uptake is even more beneficial reducing the odds of breast tumours by up to 40 per cent, the American Association for Cancer Research's annual conference heard.

Can some one graph this stuff?

Sometimes I have a feeling that a researcher comes up with a statement and then another researcher contradicts him/her and a third one contradicts both and that´s the way it goes endlessly.

Me too. And since I follow a lot of med news, it is a bit of a twirl. I'm an old med researcher, so I don't just follow piffle. But even so...

It can be very confusing.

The research on multivitamins really isn't definitive about anything. For one thing, different brands of multivitamins have different formulations. The latest Swedish study, for instance, was apparently based on multivitamins each woman had selected herself, so there was no uniformity in the formulations. Also, they pointed out that the findings really do not apply to individual women, that these are effects they noted in a large group. Individual women in that group might have reacted differently to the effects of multivitamins. So, this type of study really isn't helpful to anyone deciding whether or not to take a multivitamin, it simply suggests they need to do more research to try to narrow down the precise influence of multivitamins on breast cancer risk. In addition, the study does not rule out all potential benefits of taking a multivitamin.

I don't believe that the average multivitamin either increases cancer risk or decreases it. These studies are based on correlations, and a correlation can have absolutely nothing to do with causality. For instance, if the birth rate significantly increases during periods of heavy snow fall, you might have a correlation between snow fall and birth rate, but that does not mean that increases in the birth rate are actually caused by an increase in snow fall.

For instance, if the birth rate significantly increases during periods of heavy snow fall, you might have a correlation between snow fall and birth rate, but that does not mean that increases in the birth rate are actually caused by an increase in snow fall.

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Hm, we have more babies in Sweden than in Italy.
We also have more snow - don´t you think there might be a connection between the cold snowy nights and babies?

saab, a connection, or correlation, does not indicate cause. Cold snowy nights do not cause pregnancies.

On cold snowy nights more couples might stay home. The more couples stay home, the more frequently they might have intercourse. The more often unprotected intercourse occurs, the higher the pregnancy rate. The higher the pregnancy rate, the higher the birth rate.

But, the cause of pregnancies is sexual intercourse. Increased frequency of sexual intercourse causes a higher pregnancy rate. A higher pregnancy rate causes an increase in birth rate.

The weather doesn't cause increases in birth rate any more than the stork brings babies. It simply correlates with an increased birth rate. Conception is still caused by a sperm fertilizing an egg.

That's why we have to be careful when evaluating research results. In a lot of cases they are reporting an "association" or a correlation. But that can be misleading when it comes to knowing if A is actually causing B.



Well, suppose we also find that Italians consume significantly more pasta than do Swedes, and Italians have a lower birth rate than Swedes. So, we have a correlation between pasta consumption and birth rate. Should we then conclude that the consumption of pasta causes a decreased birth rate? That something about pasta interferes with conception?

That's the problem with correlations. They may, or may not, be actually connected to causality--whether one thing actually causes another--and they can be misleading.

Vitamins in excess can be poisonous - even water. Excess water consumption leads to drowning. Oil-based vitamins are hard to remove from the system such as Vitamin A, D, E. Vitamin B and C are water based so if you have excess V9tamins B and C just drink water and you will in an hour or two urinate it out. So taking multi-vItamins in excess is dangerous especially oil-based ones as they are stored in the fat of the body.