 USING FOODS INSTEAD OF DRUGS FOR HEALTH |
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Recent reports in the popular media said that vitamin E may not be beneficial in preventing heart disease, and may in fact be detrimental. True or false? The reported study was done with 400 International Units of the vitamin. It may indeed be true (many scientists found the study faulty,) but at that high a dose, it becomes essentially, a drug. It is sold in such high dosage for the benefit of the makers and distributors, not for the benefit of the consumers who take them. Surprise! The "recommended" dosage is 30 units. We doubt that taking 100 units would be harmful. But the popularly sold 400 is 13.3 times the government's suggested amount! The reader probably knows that too much of a good thing is not so good. Think of the common suggestion of drinking 8 glasses of water or water-based drinks a day. Increasing it by 13.3 times would mean drinking 106.4 glasses a day! Who
knows? You might drown
And note that the subjects tested were given one 400 unit pill a day. Taking a 100 unit pill four separate times would be preferable as most of the excess would be excreted each time. Of course the media blasts didn't attack the dosage. They just trumpeted the possible harm or lack of benefit to taking the pill. Recall Claude Raines in Casablanca saying with tongue in cheek, "I'm shocked, shocked that gambling is going on here." We are just as "shocked" at the weakness in media reports on health. Note: Natural vitamin E is preferable to synthetic, and though it is much more expensive, a more comprehensive dosage is obtained when the label reads "Contains mixed tocopherols." The common E is but one form of the vitamin, the Alpha form. There are eight types, including Gamma tocopherol. And the most effective forms are called tocotrienols. You get them in brown rice naturally, by the way. SEARCH BY SUBJECT - TABLE OF CONTENTS THIS MONTH'S HEALTH BULLETIN NEWS
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