Vitamin Information Center

Anyone who takes vitamin supplements and looks at its bottles or boxes is familiar with the vitamins that are contained in each tablet.

But what do those vitamins really do? Do you really need to take them? Below is a list of the most common vitamins found in supplements as well as a description of what they do.

Vitamin A

- commonly found in leafy vegetables and in other products like carrots, broccoli, papaya, eggs and liver, this vitamin helps keep the eyes healthy. A deficiency of this vitamin can cause permanent loss of eyesight.

Vitamin B1

- thiamine is the other name for this vitamin. It keeps the heart and the digestive and nervous systems functioning normally. Aside from that, thiamine is also important in a person’s physical growth and development.

Good sources of this vitamin include beef, pork, nuts and legumes, among other foods.

Vitamin B2

- otherwise known as riboflavin, this vitamin is important in metabolizing energy as well as fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Common sources of this vitamin include milk, cheese and leafy vegetables. A deficiency of this vitamin is signaled by cracked lips, mouth ulcers and sore throat, among other symptoms.

Vitamin C

- also known as ascorbic acid, this vitamin has a lot of benefits attributed to it. Some of them include boosting the immune system and minimizing the symptoms of illnesses.

It is also a well-known antioxidant. Lack of this vitamin can cause scurvy that leads to loss of teeth and eventually, death.

There is plenty of information out there about different things that are available to cure wrinkles. One of them is Vitamin C that you can get from various foods including oranges. There is quite a bit of research that indicates Vitamin C may be just what women are looking for as a very natural way to get rid of those wrinkles.

Back in the early 1970’s there was a significant study done on women. More than 4,000 of them spanning from 40 to 74 years of age were evaluated with their skin problems. They were then closely monitored and what they consumed was tracked. It became apparent that a person’s diet definitely has plenty to do with the aging of their skin.

One important determination from that study was that women consuming large amounts of Vitamin C had healthier looking skin than those that didn’t. They have fewer wrinkles and their skin was smoother. It was reasonable for them to assume that Vitamin C does slow down the aging process. This is due to the antioxidants found in it. They help the body to naturally produce more collagen. The Linoleic Acid that they contain also helps to prevent the skin from drying out.

The thought of adding more Vitamin C to your diet is easy right? But most people don’t want to consume oranges all day either. There is also the fact that fresh oranges and even orange juice tend to be expensive. There are some other alternatives though because many other types of fruit also contain plenty of Vitamin C. Some of them you may enjoy include kiwi and papaya. They are also found in certain vegetables including broccoli and peppers.

In order to get the most Vitamin C though from them you need to avoid boiling them. You need to eat them raw. You also need to consume Vitamin C all day long instead of at one sitting. That way your body is able to absorb as much of it as possible. Just think adding more Vitamin C to your diet is an easy way to control wrinkles.

There is no reason to let those wrinkles form on your skin and make you look older than you really are. You also don’t have to pay for expensive treatments such as Botox or a face lift. Consuming Vitamin C is a natural way for you to control the look of your skin. You can also do it at home so no one has to know you are fighting wrinkles. They will just be jealous that you have skin they would love to have.

So there you go.

Consuming so much Vitamin C will also help to boost your immune system. This means you will be less likely to become ill with common ailments such as the flu and colds. Your overall dietary intake will likely improve as well so you will have more energy and you may even lose some weight. Overall, this could be the tip you need to look and feel much better than you have in a long time.

Stacey Williams helps you to find the best wrinkle cream and antiaging cream to turn back the clock on your skin’s appearance. See this review of Athena 7 Minute Lift wrinkle cream at his review site here. Does this ‘face lift in a jar’ known as Athena 7 Minute Lift really work? Find out right here.

Hitachi announced in Japan [JP] they will start selling the R-Y6000, a new refrigerator capable of emitting Vitamin C to keep stored food fresh, on September 24. The fridge is Nippon-only at this point.

Hitachi sells a number of fridges on the Japanese market that lower the oxygen density via an integrated pump. But the R-Y6000 additionally is eqipped with a Vitamin C emission system that slows down the loss of nutrients in vegetables and of DHA in fish. Hitachi also promises that meat will keep its color longer. The company also integrated a sterilization filter into the fridge to prevent mold.

Hitachi’s 6-door fridge has a volume of 602 liters and will cost $3,100. 3,000 units will be produced monthly.

A new study finds high dose injections of Vitamin C can reduce cancerous tumors by half.

And what’s more — the treatment does not harm healthy cells, meaning
There are fewer difficult side-effects, often experienced with traditional cancer treatments like chemo and radiation.

Go home and die. That’s what doctors told 59 year old Arlindo Olivera.
His lung cancer was so advanced, it had spread to his brain and doctors
Said there was nothing they could do. Today, Arlindo is cancer free.

Arlindo believes his cancer is gone because of Vitamin C treatment.

Dr. Scott Greenberg says he has successfully treated many people with
Vitamin C infusions, including Arlindo.

Some doctors believe Vitamin C treatment works by killing the cancer
cells.

Researchers at the national institutes of health say it may also work as
An anti-oxidant protecting cells from the damage of free radicals.

The national institutes of health study treated mice with aggressive brain, ovarian and pancreatic tumors.
Tumor growth and weight was reduced by 41 to 53 percent and the brain cancer stopped spreading.
Doctor Greenberg says it only works in very high intravenous doses and can be used along with traditional chemo and radiation.
He says it’s a valuable option for those who don’t respond to other treatment.

Arlindo continues to be cancer free.
The treatment is not covered by insurance, but costs considerably less
Than standard chemotherapy or radiation.
It’s about 125 dollars per treatment versus several thousand dollars.

Mosquitoes are more attracted to some people than to others; that much is known from several studies.

THE CLAIM: Vitamin B can ward off mosquitoes.

THE FACTS: Mosquitoes are more attracted to some people than to others; that much is known from several studies.

But the internet is full of advertisements for pills and supplements that are supposed to keep the pests away from walking mosquito magnets. One pervasive claim is that taking vitamin B, or wearing patches and other products that are infused with it, can do the trick. Studies dating to the 1960s suggest that taking small doses of the supplement three times a day during biting season helps to produce a skin odour that mosquitoes find repulsive.

But more recent studies have shown that assertion to be a myth. In a study published in 2005 in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, scientists had a group of subjects take vitamin B supplements every day for eight weeks, while a second group took vitamin C and a third took no supplements. Once every two weeks, the scientists used swarms of mosquitoes to examine whether the supplements were having any effect. Although each subject’s attractiveness to the mosquitoes varied considerably, over all there was no evidence that vitamin B did anything to help.

Another study by scientists in Brazil tested it by administering vitamin B droplets to animals and exposing them to female mosquitoes (the only ones that bite). They found no difference in attractiveness between the vitamin B group and control groups.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Studies suggest that vitamin B is not an effective mosquito repellent.

Anahad O’Connor

The idea that vitamin C might have potential in cancer treatment has been around for decades. Perhaps the late Dr. Linus Pauling is most linked with this concept. With his death, it seemed that interest in his ideas died a bit, too. However, some scientists have continued to be interested in the subject.

For example, The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK, part of the National Institutes of Health) has continued to research this topic. In fact, this organization published a paper recently that found that injecting vitamin C in the abdomens of mice led to a decrease in the size of tumors that had been induced in them [1].

A commentary article from two scientists at the Linus Pauling Institute in Oregon accompanied this paper. [2]. The authors of the commentary (Balz Frie and Stephen Lawson) highlight the fact that the work from NIDDK shows that vitamin C at high dose has been shown to be toxic to cancer cells, but leaves normal cells alone.

This quality is, obviously, highly desirable if we’re seeking to combat cancer but wish to leave the rest of the body unscathed. Frie and Lawson discuss how high doses of vitamin C can increase production of hydrogen peroxide, which is thought to be the principal substance that accounts for vitamin C’s anti-cancer properties.

Frie and Lawson go on to highlight some of the other evidence in the area. They refer to a study published in 1974 in which 50 patients with advanced cancer were treated with intravenous infusions of vitamin C (doses of 5–45 grams per day) or oral doses (at doses of 5–20 grams per day) [3]. In 19 of these patients, there was retardation, stabilization, or regression of their tumors.

They also cite another study in which the outcomes of 100 individuals treated with vitamin C (intravenous and oral vitamin C at a dose of about 10 grams per day) were compared with a control group (who did not receive vitamin C) [4]. Patients treated with vitamin C survived approximately four times longer than those in the control group.

A follow-up study reported that patients given vitamin C had an average survival time almost one year longer than the control group [5]. Overall, 22 percent of the vitamin C-treated group survived for more than a year, compared to only 0.4 percent of non-treated control group.

Frei and Lawson also refer to two randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trials of vitamin C and advanced cancer sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. Neither of these trials showed a positive effect from vitamin C in terms of survival. However, these trials used oral vitamin C alone and, as Frei and Lawson point out, it is unlikely that sufficient levels of vitamin C would have been achieved for benefit to be possible.

The authors go on to point to two recent studies that have tested the safety of high doses of vitamin C in humans. Once certain conditions have been screened for, it seems humans have enormous tolerance for vitamin C.

They end by saying that the scientists who produced the recent work in mice are now poised to explore the potential value of high-dose vitamin C for the treatment of cancer in humans. Let’s hope that its cheap price and non-patentable status do not hold back interest in this nutrient as an anti-cancer agent.

References:

1. Chen Q, et al. Pharmacologic doses of ascorbate act as a pro-oxidant and decrease growth of aggressive tumor xenografts in mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2008; 105:11105–11109

2. Frei B, et al. Vitamin C and cancer revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2008; 105(32): 11037–11038

3. Cameron E, et al. The orthomolecular treatment of cancer. II. Clinical trial of high-dose ascorbic acid supplements in advanced human cancer. Chemico-Biological Interactions 1974; 9:285–315.

4. Cameron E, et al. Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1976; 73:3685–3689.

5. Cameron E, et al. Supplemental ascorbate in the supportive treatment of cancer: Reevaluation of prolongation of survival times in terminal human cancer. 1978; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 75:4538–4542.

Dr. John Briffa is a London-based physician and author with an interest in nutrition and natural medicine.
Dr. Briffa’s Web site

Vitamin C jabs are the new ray of hope for cancerdefine patients with poor chances and few treatment options as a new study found that injecting high dose of vitamin C instead of swallowed can destroy cancer.

The super high doses of vitamin C jabs halves the size of brain, ovarian and pancreatic tumours in mice, destroying cancerdefine cells while leaving healthy tissue unharmed. The researchers said that the vitamin may be reacting with the cancer cell chemicals to make acid.

The lead author of the study, Dr Qi Chen, from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland conducted the experiment on mice with aggressive forms of ovarian, brain and pancreatic cancer.

One group of mice was given high super doses of vitamin C jabs (up to 4grams per kilo of body weight) while another group wasn’t given any vitamin. The researchers found that the injections caused the growth and weight of tumours to drop by nearly 50 percent, while in untreated mice, the disease spread rapidly to other organs. There were no signs the cancer had spread in the treated mice.

The US team wrote in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “The daily treatment significantly decreased growth rates of ovarian, pancreatic and glioblastoma tumours established in mice”.

Adding further they said, “Similar pharmacologic concentrations were readily achieved in humans given ascorbate intravenously. This data suggests that ascorbate as a prodrug may have benefits in cancers with poor prognosisdefine and limited therapeutic options.”

The authors are suggesting that after these successful tests in mice now treatment should be considered for human use at similar levels.

While on the other hand, Cancer Research UK cautioned that other studies suggested high doses of vitamin C might interfere with existing therapies and make them less effective.

Dr Alison Ross, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘This is encouraging work but it’s at a very early stage because it involves cells grown in the lab and mice. Much more research is needed before we’ll know whether vitamin C could be a viable cancer treatment.’

Vitamin C (chemical name ascorbate) has been part of complementary or alternative cancer treatment for more than 30 years.

It is generally used as hair bleach and now the study shows that it kills cancer cells without harming healthy tissue, which means that the cancer treatment should be free of nausea, pain and hair loss many times associated with cancer medications and would also have the added advantage of being cheap.

Previous studies show that higher intake of vitamin C reduce human risk for gastricdefine, esophageal, pancreatic and lung cancer. Patients with higher levels of ascorbate have been shown to have lower risk of both coronary heart disease, stroke and cataract development.

PepsiCo has acquired UK-based vitamin water brand V Water. The drinks giant said that the acquisition would create significant opportunities in a “dynamic and growing category”.
The V Water range was launched in 2005, and now has a range of six flavours containing a number of added vitamins, minerals and herbal extracts including Vitamin C, Zinc, Selenium and Ginseng.
Garrett Quigley, General Manager of PepsiCo UK and Ireland, said: “V Water provides us with a strong platform for expansion into a fast growing market, and reflects PepsiCo’s global commitment to transforming our portfolio of products and extending our range of healthier beverages. The UK is a key market for us, and we are extremely excited about developing a relationship with V Water in the UK, which will enhance and contribute to the long-term growth of the V Water brand”.
The two founders of V Water, Walter Faulstroh and Chris Coleridge, said: “V Water has positioned itself in the UK market as “The Vitamin Water” since 2005. Joining V Water’s exciting brand and people to the powerful PepsiCo family will allow us to continue to expand and fulfil the full potential of V Water.  We are very excited to be leading the expansion of the value-added water category in the UK”.

Taking vitamin supplements does not improve health and may increase the risk of premature death, according to media reports.

A review of 67 randomised trials found that taking the supplements vitamin A, vitamin E and beta-carotene could lead to premature death.

The evidence for vitamin C and selenium suggested that the pills did not increase the risk of death, but there was no benefit in taking the pills compared with a placebo.

The researchers concluded that the current evidence does not support the use of antioxidant supplements in a healthy population.

There is no suggestion from the review, however, that a diet rich in natural sources of antioxidants could be damaging to health, say the papers.

Around 12 million people in Britain are taking vitamin supplements fuelling a £330 million industry.

What is the research?
The reports are based on the findings of a Danish study into the impact of antioxidant supplements on mortality rates.

A search of published literature and other studies held by manufacturers identified 815 trials. But only 67 were considered to be adequately run randomised controlled trials. These included 232,550 people aged an average of 62 years.

Twenty-one of the trials focused on the use of supplements in healthy individuals, while the rest tested patients with a range of diseases. Trials including children, pregnant women or patients with acute conditions, such as cancer, were excluded.

Antioxidant supplements were found to increase the risk of premature death in 47 trials.

Overall, antioxidant supplements were linked to a 4 per cent increased risk of death compared with placebo.

But when antioxidants were assessed separately, the researchers found that vitamin A was linked to a 16 per cent increased risk of premature death. For beta-carotene there was a 7 per cent increased risk of death and for vitamin E a 4 per cent increased risk of death.

The use of vitamin C or selenium did not increase the risk of death but showed no beneficial health effects compared with placebo.

Antioxidant supplements could lead to early death by eliminating too many free radicals, suggest the researchers. This could interfere with some essential defensive mechanisms such as apoptosis and detoxification, they say.

What do the researchers say?
Lead author Dr Christian Gluud, from the centre for clinical intervention research at Copenhagen University, called for better regulation of antioxidant supplements.

‘If a patient can eat a healthy, varied diet, then there is no need to take vitamin supplements. According to our results this may even be harmful.

‘Based on our results, as well as the results from other studies, it seems that these supplements might increase the progression of cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers.

‘It seems that the increased mortality comes from an acceleration of disease progression rather than from the development of new diseases.’

The team has not looked at whether a diet rich in natural antioxidants could be harmful to health but it would be good to conduct some large scale trials into this, said Dr Gluud.

What do other experts say?
Anne Sidnell, nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation, said: ‘The findings of this study are in line with other studies that have shown that antioxidants have no health benefits when consumed as supplements rather than through food.

‘Our bodies are designed to take in the correct amounts of nutrients from food, but there is a danger of overdosing when using supplements.’

There may be occasions when supplements are needed, such as vitamin D supplements for the elderly or folic acid for pregnant women, but overall a balanced diet is the best way to stay healthy, she added.

But Pamela Mason, nutritionist and spokeswomen for the Health Supplements Information Service, said: ‘Trials using antioxidant supplements have shown inconsistent findings and yet another review or meta-analysis is not going to tell us anything at this stage.

‘Antioxidants, including these noted in the Cochrane review, are essential for health and UK national dietary surveys have shown that some people have poor intakes of such nutrients.’

Antioxidants are not ‘magic bullets’ and were never intended for the prevention of chronic disease and mortality but for health maintenance, she added.

DEATH BY VITAMINS!!! AS one of the fifth of the population using complementary medicine, I should surely be worried by the apparently sound scientific review purporting to show that vitamin supplements are a waste of time and could even shorten life. Somehow I can’t get my knickers in a twist about this latest revelation. Exposés of the dangers lurking in the healthfood shop and on the complementary medicine shelves at Boots come round more regularly than Christmas.

Oh, how the most narrow-minded conventional medics love to hammer anyone or anything that suggests that not every solution to every medical condition is to be found in pharmaceutical-based allopathic medicine. You’d think they’d be delighted that people like me take an active rather than a passive “Cure me doc, I’m sick” attitude towards their health.

Instead of clogging up their surgeries, we take to bed with a hot toddy and vitamin C, echinacea, and zinc. Surely to be encouraged? But while the more enlightened orthodox medics can see that some tried and tested complementary remedies can play a role in healing, many more are threatened by alternative approaches, even the humble vitamin, and relish any opportunity to bash them.

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Let’s get the risks in proportion here. It’s pretty hard, well-nigh impossible even, to commit suicide in a healthfood shop. Even supposing I went in there and binged on every multivitamin and herb I could lay my hands on - supposing I could actually swallow enough of these daunting, horse-sized capsules in the first place - the worst outcome would be projectile vomiting. Yet I never fail to be amazed how the knockers of complementary medicine seem inured to the not inconsiderable risks attached to pharmaceutical drugs.

The thinktank Compass recently quantified these. Latest annual figures showed 1,040,000 people in the UK admitted to hospital because of side- effects of prescription drugs, a staggering 6.5% of all admissions. Adverse reactions cost the the country £2 billion a year: that’s enough to eliminate MRSA from all our hospitals.

What sort of piffling reactions are we talking about? Certain conventional anti-depressants, for instance, leave some young people suicidal when they were only moderately depressed to start with. Whereas good old St John’s Wort, now a fairly mainstream herb dispensed in Germany, perks you up better, at no risk, unless you mix it with conventional drugs. And why should all those surprisingly supple senior citizens who find supplements such as MSM and glucosamine palpably effective in warding off creaky joints use conventional anti-arthitis medicine instead, after all the fuss over Vioxx, the arthritis painkiller now established to have caused heart attacks?

This week’s anti-vitamin headlines are based on a review by one particular group of researchers, effectively a rehash of their paper published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Faced with a substantial number of studies reporting positive results for antioxidant vitamins, they first excluded more than 400 trials that had no deaths, then decided which trials they liked (those with a low risk bias) and did not like (those with a high risk bias).

According to one leading expert in this field, Dr Balz Frei, it is “a flawed analysis of flawed data, and it does little to help us understand the real health effects of antioxidants, whether beneficial or otherwise”. (For a detailed critique of the methodology of this study see www.patrickholford.com, “How antioxidant researchers cooked the books”.) Yes, yes, I know, the comforting wisdom doled out by government health gurus is that we don’t need supplements if we eat well. That might be persuasive, were it not that the concept of recommended daily amounts (RDAs) for vitamins and minerals was devised during the second world war to prevent deficiency diseases such as scurvy. RDAs are not to be confused with an optimum intake, which could be significantly higher. And can we lay to rest the stereotype, put about by mainstream health authorities, that consumers of supplements use them as a substitute for a healthy diet? In my experience, it’s precisely the dedicated healthy eaters who also take supplements.

Bear in mind that nitrogenous fertilisers and intensive food production methods have reduced vitamin and micronutrient levels in the food we eat. Our apples aren’t as nutritious as they were in the 1950s, say. It is undisputed, for example, that British soil has insufficient levels of selenium, the immune system booster, to promote health. Also, environmental pollution now exposes us to many more toxins than humans encountered even half a century ago, so it’s a thought worth considering that we might need higher levels of antioxidants to fight them than our diets can provide.

Rather than rubbishing supplements, medics with an enlightened, open attitude to promoting public health should accept that complementary medicine is here to stay, and encourage research that helps us understand better how it can work. Yet they experience a collective acute adverse reaction, even to users of vitamin C. That’s their hang-up and they need to get over it.