Guest guest Posted July 20, 2005 Report Share Posted July 20, 2005 Hi Jeff, I don't care for fish much, myself, but the question arises which fish? There has been a lot of discussion about diff types, and there is certainly a lot of diff between, say, fresh water catfish and salmon in terms of fatty acids. I could probably eat cod fish a lot but it's like beer to me, one fish and I'm up to here. Shellfish is another story. There are times when I've got to have a raw oyster. I eat shellfish maybe 1-2 times per month, usually seafood gumbo, my one vice. So I do a little fish oil, but not everyday, because it causes me "bruising". Same for aspirin and Plavix - don't do that. Recently, I'm trying a high LA oil - 1 tbls and 1 EPA/DHA capsule to see effect on inflammation. I think inflammation is my subject for the next year maybe, having found that ETYA inhibits delta 6 desaturase. My one regular supplement is an MV, but I take L-carnitine maybe 3 times per week. So I think there's a class of "supplements" that doesn't necessarily fall into the regular medical directive. Not necessarily kin to CR. For example, spices, "cooking" type herbs, green tea, coffee, tea, do not fall into the category of supps. BTW, I'm not fond of herbals-sold-to-cure anything. The other fact is that everything I have, starts with a "we don't know what causes it." And that starts with aging, and the things that go with it - HTN, BPH, arthritis, obesity, and the crap that crawls across your face for 23 yrs. You name it. So if a person gets prostate cancer, eg, he is entitled to try every dam thing he can find to cure it, so it's logical to use some stuff to avoid it. Just like restricting ALA. Call that a negative supplement technique. Probably the only herbal rec'd by docs is saw palmetto and I can vouch for ignoring that. There's So the directive is aimed at the supps offered to cure stuff it can't cure at a an exorbitant price. They haven't done the studies to show the supps don't do anything so they resort to: "....there are insufficient data to justify altering public health policy from an emphasis on foods and dietary patterns to one on supplements." I agree with that, but it doesn't apply to all the things we have to do for ourselves, outside their domain. And one of those is CR. Just my take. Regards. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Novick Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 11:45 AM Subject: RE: [ ] newbie - my plan, and a few questions >> As for supplements, if you're getting enough from food, you're just wasting your money and more is not necessarily better. (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-07/tu-tns071805.php) Public release date: 19-Jul-2005 Contact: Siobhan Gallagher 617-636-6586 Tufts nutrition scientists say it is premature to focus on nutrient supplements over diet Authors urge caution in JAMA article: High dose nutrient supplementation may have more adverse consequences than anticipated BOSTON, July 19, 2005, 4:00 P.M. ET--In a special communication piece that appears in the July 20th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Alice Lichtenstein, DSc, senior scientist and director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at the Mayer U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University and the Center's director and senior scientist, , MD, report that the most promising data on nutrition and optimal health outcomes relate to dietary patterns, not nutrient supplements. They further state that there are insufficient data to justify altering public health policy from an emphasis on foods and dietary patterns to one on supplements. The authors emphasize that nutrient supplementation, particularly for certain at-risk populations, has an important place in health care. However, they point out that there is an important difference between observing associations between particular nutrients and health outcomes and detecting causal connections. "Perhaps no better example exists than the disheartening results of the vitamin E intervention trials for the prevention of cardiovascular disease," says . Lichtenstein explains that although observational studies suggest positive effects, "we lack supporting evidence from intervention trials, and that is critical for making recommendations to the public." Data are insufficient in other areas as well, according to Lichtenstein. "Disease-nutrient relationships are by their nature very complex. Within the context of high dose nutrient supplementation, outcomes are frequently unexpected. Not only have some studies failed to yield positive results but, occasionally unanticipated negative effects have been observed." The authors point out that some of the unanticipated findings from high dose single or nutrient cocktails may be because the levels used are much higher than those necessary to prevent deficiency disease. In one study, adding a nutrient antioxidant cocktail to a well established cholesterol-lowering drug treatment actually lessened the beneficial effect. "We still have a lot to learn about the use of high doses of nutrients. The important point is to prevent the cart from getting in front of the horse; we need to validate the science before there is wide scale adoption by the general public as we saw with vitamin E. We can no longer automatically assume there will be no adverse consequences," notes Lichtenstein. In their overview of the existing literature, Lichtenstein and , both professors at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and School of Medicine note that their caution is "based on the lack of a complete understanding of nutrient requirements and interactions, and disappointing results of intervention studies with single nutrients or nutrient cocktails." "The identification, isolation, and purification of nutrients in the early 20th century raised the possibility that optimal health outcomes could be realized through nutrient supplementation," write the authors, but this advance has been "a double-edged sword." While the current expert opinion is that there is not enough evidence to justify emphasizing nutrient supplements instead of food and diet for maintaining good health, this topic remains under rigorous research, and new data is published regularly. Based on the available information, the authors say, "eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, whole grains and fish." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 20, 2005 Report Share Posted July 20, 2005 I always enjoy your "take" on things and I agree in principle. We should do everything we can to eat an optimal diet. Then, based on individual health issues, concerns, medical conditions, personal health history etc, there may be justification, even if its only theoretical to use a supplement. But, understand the pros, the cons, and the side effects and that nothing is a "miracle" or a "cure all". Both sides of the coin (supplement and medical) are equally guilty and equally innocent of engaging in the same kind of practices about thier respective industries and products. In regard to fish, I put this chart together a few months back that ranks fish based on Cholesterol, saturated fat, sodium, omega 3s and mercury. The article is page 5 and the chart is page 6. Its based on data from the EPA and USDA http://www.pritikin.com/pdf/2004/septoct04.pdf RegardsJeff From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of jwwrightSent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 12:28 PM Subject: Re: [ ] newbie - supplements Hi Jeff, I don't care for fish much, myself, but the question arises which fish? There has been a lot of discussion about diff types, and there is certainly a lot of diff between, say, fresh water catfish and salmon in terms of fatty acids. I could probably eat cod fish a lot but it's like beer to me, one fish and I'm up to here. Shellfish is another story. There are times when I've got to have a raw oyster. I eat shellfish maybe 1-2 times per month, usually seafood gumbo, my one vice. So I do a little fish oil, but not everyday, because it causes me "bruising". Same for aspirin and Plavix - don't do that. Recently, I'm trying a high LA oil - 1 tbls and 1 EPA/DHA capsule to see effect on inflammation. I think inflammation is my subject for the next year maybe, having found that ETYA inhibits delta 6 desaturase. My one regular supplement is an MV, but I take L-carnitine maybe 3 times per week. So I think there's a class of "supplements" that doesn't necessarily fall into the regular medical directive. Not necessarily kin to CR. For example, spices, "cooking" type herbs, green tea, coffee, tea, do not fall into the category of supps. BTW, I'm not fond of herbals-sold-to-cure anything. The other fact is that everything I have, starts with a "we don't know what causes it." And that starts with aging, and the things that go with it - HTN, BPH, arthritis, obesity, and the crap that crawls across your face for 23 yrs. You name it. So if a person gets prostate cancer, eg, he is entitled to try every dam thing he can find to cure it, so it's logical to use some stuff to avoid it. Just like restricting ALA. Call that a negative supplement technique. Probably the only herbal rec'd by docs is saw palmetto and I can vouch for ignoring that. There's So the directive is aimed at the supps offered to cure stuff it can't cure at a an exorbitant price. They haven't done the studies to show the supps don't do anything so they resort to: "....there are insufficient data to justify altering public health policy from an emphasis on foods and dietary patterns to one on supplements." I agree with that, but it doesn't apply to all the things we have to do for ourselves, outside their domain. And one of those is CR. Just my take. Regards. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Novick Sent: Wednesday, July 20, 2005 11:45 AM Subject: RE: [ ] newbie - my plan, and a few questions >> As for supplements, if you're getting enough from food, you're just wasting your money and more is not necessarily better. (http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-07/tu-tns071805.php) Public release date: 19-Jul-2005 Contact: Siobhan Gallagher 617-636-6586 Tufts nutrition scientists say it is premature to focus on nutrient supplements over diet Authors urge caution in JAMA article: High dose nutrient supplementation may have more adverse consequences than anticipated BOSTON, July 19, 2005, 4:00 P.M. ET--In a special communication piece that appears in the July 20th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Alice Lichtenstein, DSc, senior scientist and director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at the Mayer U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University and the Center's director and senior scientist, , MD, report that the most promising data on nutrition and optimal health outcomes relate to dietary patterns, not nutrient supplements. They further state that there are insufficient data to justify altering public health policy from an emphasis on foods and dietary patterns to one on supplements. The authors emphasize that nutrient supplementation, particularly for certain at-risk populations, has an important place in health care. However, they point out that there is an important difference between observing associations between particular nutrients and health outcomes and detecting causal connections. "Perhaps no better example exists than the disheartening results of the vitamin E intervention trials for the prevention of cardiovascular disease," says . Lichtenstein explains that although observational studies suggest positive effects, "we lack supporting evidence from intervention trials, and that is critical for making recommendations to the public." Data are insufficient in other areas as well, according to Lichtenstein. "Disease-nutrient relationships are by their nature very complex. Within the context of high dose nutrient supplementation, outcomes are frequently unexpected. Not only have some studies failed to yield positive results but, occasionally unanticipated negative effects have been observed." The authors point out that some of the unanticipated findings from high dose single or nutrient cocktails may be because the levels used are much higher than those necessary to prevent deficiency disease. In one study, adding a nutrient antioxidant cocktail to a well established cholesterol-lowering drug treatment actually lessened the beneficial effect. "We still have a lot to learn about the use of high doses of nutrients. The important point is to prevent the cart from getting in front of the horse; we need to validate the science before there is wide scale adoption by the general public as we saw with vitamin E. We can no longer automatically assume there will be no adverse consequences," notes Lichtenstein. In their overview of the existing literature, Lichtenstein and , both professors at Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and School of Medicine note that their caution is "based on the lack of a complete understanding of nutrient requirements and interactions, and disappointing results of intervention studies with single nutrients or nutrient cocktails." "The identification, isolation, and purification of nutrients in the early 20th century raised the possibility that optimal health outcomes could be realized through nutrient supplementation," write the authors, but this advance has been "a double-edged sword." While the current expert opinion is that there is not enough evidence to justify emphasizing nutrient supplements instead of food and diet for maintaining good health, this topic remains under rigorous research, and new data is published regularly. Based on the available information, the authors say, "eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, whole grains and fish." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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