This is $7000/year per head, $19/per day, to not live as long as the majority in similar countries. This is more than one spends on food and this for a profession that is the #3 cause of premature death [what if it would be 4 or 5?].
So, while ‘cure’ is elusive, the wise use of a single multivitamin, omega-3 use and generally a magnesium supplement [to prevent disease from manifesting itself in the first place] costs maximum $0.25/day and is balance of evidence based. However, above we have the medical profession unaware of the 95% consistent and supportive nutritional benefit in journals they are supposed to read [AJCN, Circ., NEJM other] proposing ‘dangers’ from supplements .. Ah, well. Why first expose ‘quacks’ [and there are plenty] in other fields, rather than stopping the ‘quack’ actions [link above] of medical colleagues and where the real deaths and side-effects happen. Then, there are drug-nutrient interactions that, my guess, 95% of doctors have no clue about.

Clearly, ‘medicine’ has improved and is better than before in preventing deaths in an ongoing event but there is not much about how to affect the epidemic fundamentally at its root.

Pandemics can be caused by microbes or by changes in “the milieu”: some say stresses, some say faturated fat and cholesterol, and I say micro-/minor-nutrients we no longer ingest due to food changes. Pan or epidemics are not usually halted by medical interventions although they may improve survivability.

Interesting in the above link is a reference #43, a study with the word MULTIVITAMIN in the title. Guess what: 2000 IU of E [hypothetically possibly harmful in a statin user], beta-carotene [NOT even a vitamin and without ANY justification in a population getting angioplasties] and some vitamin C.
ERRORS: This is NOT a multivitamin, there was NO biological role of action of the 3 ingredients and NO justification for their conclusion that MULTIVITAMINS are not beneficial.
Bad science [like most studies that started this debate] by interventionists who have NO clue as to what a particular vitamin does, and written with complete lack of over view of biochemistry. Trust me, I know one of the authors.

Finally, the U.S. was 55% from the top in heart mortality in 38 industrialized countries in spite it spending at least 50% more on health care while embracing more medicines and certainly getting more invasive ‘interventions’.

Question remains: what’s better for the patient: a reported $20 – $50 hs-CRP test or a $20 homocysteine test. Here we differ.
Kind regards, vos{at}health-heart.org

For the record, I subscribe to AJCN, NEJM and PLEFA and have access to ANY pdf from ANY journal within hours, a nice access to science to have!

Yet when one looks at the first study cited on Vitamin C and E, there appear to be major problems with the study.

Among them are:

500 mg of C were given despite the author’s comment that ‘“In a pooled analysis of 9 cohorts, vitamin C supplement use exceeding 700 mg/day was significantly associated with a 25% reduction in coronary heart disease risk.” If that is the case why was such a low dose used?

Recent research has also shown that Vitamin C levels peak in several hours and rapidly decline, so any well designed trial should specify dosing at least three times a day, which was not done in this case.

Only as few as 66% of the participants took their dose of Vitamin C, and 28% took less than the 66%, yet they were counted in the analysis.

As far the Vitamin E portion why were participants given the vitamin only every other day, and they apparently were given the synthetic form, which is much less bioavailable than the natural form of Vitamin E.

I could go on but my point is simple – over and over again I see uncritical evaluations of studies that ‘disprove’ the use of substances or techniques that go against the ’scientific’ biases of the authors, and detailed critiques of any studies that support the use of vitamins, or other modalities not in favor on this site.

This comment shouldn’t be interpreted as concluding that Vitamin C has been definitely proven to prevent CVD, but there are a number of studies, as indicated by the authors of this study, that suggest significant benefit from taking relatively high doses of C.
And so as far as I’m concerned the jury is still out.

Let’s talk consensus [in heart disease] as you call it, let’s look at our Adult Treatment Panel III update. I met 3 of the 8 of that select panel that is so dripping with pharma money [10 conflicts on average] that AT LEAST you’d expect them to know the existing study data. They don’t.
One ‘updater’ had not even heard of the J-LIT study [finding more deaths in those, mainly women, most responsive to statin after 6 years] or that his slide of 4S also included 3 more female deaths in that poster child statin study.
The other 2 I met did not know that the statin studies show no mortality benefit in women .. one of them waving to the to hundreds in the audience: “is there anyone here believing women don’t benefit from statins ha ha ha? It’s indeed a belief system everybody’s buying into however a first year actuary student can figure out we’re not saving lives in our most fatal disease.
$m21 for Crestor in JUPITER and 6 cardiovascular deaths postponed.
One of the ATP III guys, a now ex-NIH employee, pocketed $114,000 + ’stock options’ while delivering ‘consensus’ to unsuspecting doctors.
Consensus .. all ‘experts’ agreed that Ford, G.M, AIG and the economy are fundamentally strong.
A wise Brit once said: the opinion of a consensus committee depends upon who is invited to sit on it.
I thought doctors went with hard science instead.
If you know of a person with more statin studies in his file, I’d like to know: I may have all placebo controlled studies ever done which of course does not make me right but it does make me informed.

To hatch_xanadu potassium supplements are minuscule 99 milligrams maximum and NOT worth it. Average U.S. male intake 3100 mg. Prunes, beans, medium potato or banana are about 500 mg. Then there on the store shelf salt substitutes, one being NO-SALT. A cheap multivitamin is always worth it unless you’re an ‘unbeliever’ like many of the early-crop medical doctors.
Low potassium can be lethal. Vegetarians may get 8000-11000 mg; RDA [effecitvely a minimum] 2000 mg. Ask MD when on some diuretic or if kidney failure. Source: “An Evidence Based Approach to Vitamins and Minerals” 2003.

Hoping for some answers about solubility and concentration levels in the powder (because I’d rather skip the supplement than *overload* my husband with potassium or, conversely, get ripped off), I read the one customer review. It was all, “WOW, this stuff really WORKS! I felt GREAT the next day!!”

I think therein lies the problem. Folks expecting a singular effect, rather than, y’know, a supplement.

I may be bias as per your diagnosis but you have not responded to a single piece of data I have proposed, none. You also have not said that you actually looked at any of the URL’s I provided. Be that as it may, you have not given them due consideration.

Just because I participate in debate of the science with an outstanding group of scientists you may not like does not make my references irrelevant. Just because more people thought the earth was flat [or think statins prevent atheroma] does not make it so.

I’m a fan of Medline, why not accuse Dr weing of a disregard of the science for calling that database ’stinking’ while invoking ‘3 Amigos’ [?]. However, let’s keep this debate science based rather than attacking me about my associations.

Yes, I am a member of http:www.thincs.org a group …who have in common the opinion that cholesterol the molecule has nothing to do with the cause of heart disease

His organization, THINCS, was founded to promote the opinions of a small minority of people, ignoring the huge majority who have looked at the same data and reached a difference consensus. THINCS is based on opinion and opinion is all they have; the weight of evidence favors their opponents.

His bias is clear, especially after his comments about medicine being a profession that kills a patient every 5 minutes. There’s nothing to be gained by debating a true believer.

And here is your website
http://www.lipid.org/clinical/patients/1000005.php#heart_attacks from which I quote:
Diet and cholesterol drugs do not change the overall size of atherosclerotic plaques very much at all [sic], so that the blockages improve very little.[!!] However, diet and cholesterol drugs have some kind of effect on plaques to make them much less prone to rupture. [or through the NO-synthase pathway, reduce non-fatal angina, make heart attacks more 'silent' rather than overt, while the decline on Lipitor continues as per the above .gif]
So, the issue is: how to prevent the plaque in the first place, how to make collagen caps less ‘vulnerable’ [stronger] and how to keep the ticker going [think: omega-3, magnesium, natures defibrillators].

I take it you have no data supporting your point that the treatment of MI after 1965 [the peak] is related to the decline of DEATHS from heart disease and stroke. You’d think that modern medicine would have been extensively documenting such victory. They have not. Speculation as Dr. Hall would say.

You sent me to a corporate website supported by corporate wealth [still] worth combined several trillion dollars: http://www.lipid.org/supporters.php Their newsletter is appropriately called Lipid Spin
Why do you complain about vitamin pushers while lipid.org is the ultimate product of corporate pushers scaring people and prescribers about cholesterol and therefore into the stuff they sell.

The only ‘lipids’ that affect heart disease BIG TIME are omega-3’s and to a lesser extent, trans fats. Cholesterol in [wet] foods and in non dried meat has NOTHING to do with the incidence of cardiovascular disease, that much is clear.

Signed, Eddie Vos, member of ISSFAL, the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids, a not-for-profit group of only scientists http://www.issfal.org.uk/