News Media Virtually Silent on Positive Vitamin
Research(OMNS, October 29, 2008) Researchers at the
University of Texas Anderson Cancer Center have found that taking more vitamin E
substantially reduces lung cancer. Their new study shows that people consuming
the highest amounts of vitamin E had the greatest benefit. When they compared
persons taking the most vitamin E with those taking the least, there was a 61%
reduction in lung cancer risk. (1)
Lung cancer is the most prevalent form
of cancer on earth; over 1.3 million people are diagnosed with it each year.
With medical treatment, survival rates are "consistently poor," says Cancer
Research UK. Lung cancer kills nearly 1.2 million per year. It accounts for 12%
of all cancers, but results in 18% of all cancer deaths. (2) Anything that can
reduce these dismal facts is important news . . .very important. Yet the
mainstream media have virtually ignored vitamin E's important role as a cancer
fighter.
A sixty-one percent reduction in lung cancer with vitamin E? How
could the news media have missed this one?
The news media probably did
not miss it: they simply did not report it. They are biased. You can see for
yourself what bias there is. Try a "Google" search for any of the major
newspapers or broadcast media, using the name of the news organization along
with the phrase "vitamin E lung cancer." When you do, you will find that it will
quickly bring up previous items alleging that vitamin E might (somehow) increase
cancer risk. You will find little or nothing at all on how vitamin E prevents
cancer. Indeed, the bias is so strong that even a qualified search for
"increased vitamin E reduces lung cancer" will still, and preferentially, bring
up media coverage alleging that vitamin E is harmful. Negative reporting sells
newspapers and pulls in viewing audiences. The old editors' adage must still be
true: "If it bleeds, it leads."
Here's more positive vitamin E cancer
research that the media "missed." A study in 2002 looked at patients with colon
cancer "who received a daily dose of 750 mg of vitamin E during a period of 2
weeks. Short-term supplementation with high doses of dietary vitamin E leads to
increased CD4:CD8 ratios and to enhanced capacity by their T cells to produce
the T helper 1 cytokines interleukin 2 and IFN-gamma. In 10 of 12 patients, an
increase of 10% or more (average, 22%) in the number of T cells producing
interleukin 2 was seen after 2 weeks of vitamin E supplementation." The authors
concluded that "dietary vitamin E may be used to improve the immune functions in
patients with advanced cancer." That improvement was achieved in a mere two
weeks merits special attention. (3)
Was it on the news? Did you hear
about how high doses of vitamin E help cancer patients' immune systems in only
two weeks? Why not? Might the answer possibly have anything to do with money?
One cannot watch television or read a magazine or newspaper without it being
obvious that drug company cash is one of the media's very largest sources of
revenue. Given where their advertising income comes from, it is hardly a big
surprise that media reporting on vitamins is biased. Well-publicized vitamin
scares feed the pharmaceutical industry. Successful reports of safe, inexpensive
vitamin therapy do not.
One commentator has observed that pharmaceutical
and other "corporations marshal huge public relations efforts on behalf of their
agendas. In the United States the 170,000 public relations employees whose job
it is to manipulate news, public opinion and public policy in the interests of
their clients outnumber news reporters by 40,000." (4) Another commentator wrote
that "Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a news media
watchdog group, told the American Free Press that 60 percent of journalists
surveyed by FAIR admitted that advertisers 'try to change stories (and) there is
an overwhelming influence of corporations and advertisers' on broadcast and
print news reporting." (5)
Drug companies don't have any drug that can
reduce lung cancer risk by 61%. If they did, you would have heard all about it
in their advertisements. And it would be all over the news. Positive drug
studies get the headlines. Positive vitamin studies rarely do. This is an
enormous public health problem with enormous consequences. A cynic might say
that press and television coverage of a vitamin study tends to be inversely
proportionate to the study's clinical usefulness. Truly valuable research does
not scare people; it helps people get well. It would be difficult to identify
anything more helpful than actively reporting the story when a vitamin is shown
to reduce lung cancer by 61%.
The good news about how important high
quantities of vitamin E are in combating cancer is not arising out of nowhere. A
US National Library of Medicine MEDLINE search will bring up over 3,000 studies
on the subject, some dating back to 1946. By the early 1950s, research clearly
supported the use of vitamin E against cancer. (6) Before 1960, vitamin E was
shown to reduce the side effects of radiation cancer treatment. (7) In reviewing
vitamin E research, one notes that the high-dose studies got the best
results.
Vitamin E is not the sure cure for cancer. It is not certain
prevention, either. Stopping cigarette smoking is essential. But vitamin E is
part of the solution, and we need more of it. An independent panel of physicians
and researchers (8) has recently called for increasing the daily recommended
intake for vitamin E to 200 IU. The present US RDA/DRI is a mere 15-20
IU/day.
It is time to raise it. A lot.
References:
(1)
Mahabir S, Schendel K, Dong YQ, Barrera SL, Spitz MR, Forman MR. Dietary alpha-,
beta-, gamma- and delta-tocopherols in lung cancer risk. Int J Cancer. 2008 Sep
1;123(5):1173-80.
(2) [
link to info.cancerresearchuk.org]
(3) Malmberg KJ, Lenkei R, Petersson M et al. A short-term dietary
supplementation of high doses of vitamin E increases T helper 1 cytokine
production in patients with advanced colorectal cancer. Clin Cancer Res. 2002
Jun; 8(6):1772-8.
(4) Robbins R. Global problems and the culture of
capitalism. Allyn and Bacon, 1999, p 138. [
link to www.globalissues.org]
(5) Prestage J.
Mainstream journalism: Shredding the First Amendment. Online Journal, November
7, 2002. [
link to www.globalissues.org]
(6) Telford IR.
The influence of alpha tocopherol on lung tumors in strain A mice. Tex Rep Biol
Med. 1955;13(3):515-21. Swick RW, Baumann CA, Miller WL Jr, Rumsfeld HW Jr.
Tocopherol in tumor tissues and effects of tocopherol on the development of
liver tumors. Cancer Res. 1951 Dec;11(12):948-53.
(7) Fischer W. [The
protective effect of tocopherol against toxic phenomena connected with the
roentgen irradiation of mammary carcinoma.] Munch Med Wochenschr. 1959 Sep
4;101:1487-8. German. Also: Sabatini C, Balli L, Tagliavini R. [Effects of
vitamin E and testosterone in comparisons of skin exposed to high doses of
roentgen rays administered by semi-contact technic.] Riforma Med. 1955 Apr
30;69(18):Suppl, 1-4. Italian. See also: Graham JB, Graham RM. Enhanced
effectiveness of radiotherapy in cancer of the uterine cervix. Surg Forum.
1953;(38th Congress):332-8.
(8) Doctors say, Raise the RDAs now.
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 30, 2007. [
link to orthomolecular.org]
For more
information:
Many full-text nutrition and vitamin therapy research papers
are posted for free access at [
link to orthomolecular.org]
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nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: [
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