In an editorial last month (Issue
#154 May 1996), I expressed a fairly controversial viewpoint that beta
carotene might be contributing to pro-neoplasia formation, meaning favoring
malignant cell growth, in the high-risk smoking population. I fully
expect that a letter will appear soon shooting down that hypothesis.
Nevertheless, it raises the issue that appears to underlie the unconventional
medical communities championing of vitamins and stoning of drugs. The
pithy reason given for bad-mouthing medical physicians prescription(s)
is that drugs are dangerous, ultimately toxic and potentially carcinogenic,
whereas mega-vitamin supplementation is safe, nontoxic and noncarcinogenic.
Broadly speaking, vitamin supplementation has rarely created significant
poisoning or toxicity, except in the fiasco several years ago when an
unscrupulous Japanese manufacturer of amino acids unloaded a tainted
batch of tryptophan on the American wholesale market. However, long-term
megavitamin therapy has never undergone methodical outcome research
for morbidity, and the question of it playing a pro-neoplastic role
remains essentially unknown. When a long-time follower of natural healing
ultimately dies of cancer, heart disease, or infection, did the use
of supplementation stave off the disease that would have presented even
earlier in the individuals life, or did it possibly contribute to the
disease formation? It seems that mega-vitamin use in quenching free
radical pathology, would argue that vitamins prevent degenerative disease
formation, but this theory remains a belief system rather than a documented
observation.
Mostly what we do in alternative
medical therapy is experimental. We assume that long-term use of mega-vitamin
supplementation will benefit the patient, because short-term use obviously
improves his or her symptoms. The sticky question remains did we really
prevent the major disease from happening? One cannot set the clock back
and take the patient who has succumbed to a malignancy and check out
a different course of action, using no megavitamin therapy, or no alternative
treatment. Preventing disease in an individual is not a measurable event.
Given the fact that we cannot measure
prevention, might it not be prudent to reassess yearly, what we are
doing with our patients megavitamin supplementation? Are there any signs
that we might be off course, actually encouraging new degeneration occurrence?
If so, should we shift gears and radically change the patients supplementation
protocol? It would appear that the only rational approach to this difficulty
would be to give the protocol a testing. Eliminating supplement use
for a time period allows some observation as to supplement need, dependency,
and adverse effect versus benefit. Changing supplements offers a glimpse
at how one group of nutrients may be affecting our system quite differently
from a second grouping. The soft sciences of electrical field diagnosis
by devices capable of measuring subtle energies appears to diagnose
supplement compatibility. Such techniques, including muscle testing
of supplements, may be quite irrational scientifically, but may offer
clues that some supplement(s) just aren't right for us and may need
avoidance or elimination.
As difficult as these questions may
be, we must consider that a supplement is not being used just today,
last week, last month, next week, or next month. For many of our patients,
the supplement has been used the last several years, even the last several
decades. When a patient follows our advice and then falls away from
our practice, the vitamin prescription is still acting on their system.
If they develop cancer or cardiovascular disease, we cannot just ignore
it as an anomaly. Just like the accountant's statement of assets and
debits, we have those who really did benefit preventive-wise and others
who did not. Aware of that uncertainty, we should always question if
our supplement prescriptions are really on track or might be contributing
to pro-neoplasia.
Jonathan Collin, M.D.
Menu
"Blinded" is Right
Clinical Medicine for the Year 2000: Treating Nuclear Bomb Exposure
Fleecing of America by Pharmaceuticals
Joy Out of Soy
Letter from the Publisher
Oncologists' Guaranteed Emplyment Act of 1998
Sleazy Side of Alternative Medicine
Stop Breast Cancer in Its Tracks
Vitamin B12: injectable versus oral
Vitamin Therapy
Dr Glenn Warner