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New US study on dietary supplements
Project: FANS highlight new study that reinforces importance of nutritional supplements.
To: National Desk, Health Reporter
Contact: Joe Giganti, 703-928-9695, for Project: FANS; e-mail: Joe@VeritasMediaGroup.info; Web site: http://www.ProjectFANS.org
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The director of Project: FANS, one of America's largest grassroots pro-nutritional supplements groups, applauds a new study, "A Study on the Cost Effects of Multivitamins for Older Adults," that reports on the positive effects of supplement use for seniors, and urges Congress to protect Americans' access to all nutritional supplements. "This study should put to rest any debate about the importance and effectiveness that nutritional supplements have on the health of all Americans, especially our senior citizens," stated Beth Clay, director of Project: FANS. "Instead of being influenced by media-hyped crises and the lobbying efforts of the anti-supplement crowd, the U.S. Congress should base their legislative decisions on the science these studies have provided."
The soon-to-be-released study, conducted by the Lewin Group, echoes the results of a 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study that focused on the benefits of nutritional supplement and vitamin use. Both studies encourage all adults to take multivitamins to minimize their risk of chronic disease, and state that use of supplements by seniors will save more than $1.6 billion dollars in healthcare and taxpayer dollars over the next five years. Specifically, the Lewin study states, "the five-year estimate of potential savings (or cost offsets) resulting from improved immune functioning and a reduction in the relative risk of coronary artery disease through providing older adults with a daily multivitamin is approximately $1.6 billion...The evidence strongly indicates that daily use of multivitamins by the elderly is nearly risk-free and is potentially associated with significant health improvements...."
"This is the final nail in the coffin for the Durbin-Clinton bill (S.722) that would at best restrict access to the very supplements that this study says will improve the health of all Americans, especially our seniors," said Clay. "This study proves that S.722 is wrong for our health, wrong for our seniors and wrong for the American taxpayers' wallets.
"Seventy percent of Americans regularly use supplements and they do not want their access to them restricted, as most of this proposed new legislation would do," concluded Clay. Project: FANS opposes any new legislation that would overturn the existing regulatory framework. Bills like S.722 seek to replace the current law of the land-DSHEA, passed in 1994-and if passed, would have permanent detrimental effects on consumer rights and access to better health.
Source: http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=121-10202003
Date: 21-Oct-03 |
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The Truth about Presciption Drugs |
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laxo chief: Our drugs do not work on most patients
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
8 December 2003
A senior executive with Britain's biggest drugs company has admitted that most prescription medicines do not work on most people who take them.
Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), said fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them.
It is an open secret within the drugs industry that most of its products are ineffective in most patients but this is the first time that such a senior drugs boss has gone public. His comments come days after it emerged that the NHS drugs bill has soared by nearly 50 per cent in three years, rising by £2.3bn a year to an annual cost to the taxpayer of £7.2bn. GSK announced last week that it had 20 or more new drugs under development that could each earn the company up to $1bn (£600m) a year.
Dr Roses, an academic geneticist from Duke University in North Carolina, spoke at a recent scientific meeting in London where he cited figures on how well different classes of drugs work in real patients.
Drugs for Alzheimer's disease work in fewer than one in three patients, whereas those for cancer are only effective in a quarter of patients. Drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis work in about half the patients, Dr Roses said. Most drugs work in fewer than one in two patients mainly because the recipients carry genes that interfere in some way with the medicine, he said.
"The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people," Dr Roses said. "I wouldn't say that most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don't work in everybody."
Some industry analysts said Dr Roses's comments were reminiscent of the 1991 gaffe by Gerald Ratner, the jewellery boss, who famously said that his high street shops are successful because they sold "total crap". But others believe Dr Roses deserves credit for being honest about a little-publicised fact known to the drugs industry for many years.
"Roses is a smart guy and what he is saying will surprise the public but not his colleagues," said one industry scientist. "He is a pioneer of a new culture within the drugs business based on using genes to test for who can benefit from a particular drug."
Dr Roses has a formidable reputation in the field of "pharmacogenomics" - the application of human genetics to drug development - and his comments can be seen as an attempt to make the industry realise that its future rests on being able to target drugs to a smaller number of patients with specific genes.
The idea is to identify "responders" - people who benefit from the drug - with a simple and cheap genetic test that can be used to eliminate those non-responders who might benefit from another drug.
This goes against a marketing culture within the industry that has relied on selling as many drugs as possible to the widest number of patients - a culture that has made GSK one of the most profitable pharmaceuticals companies, but which has also meant that most of its drugs are at best useless, and even possibly dangerous, for many patients.
Dr Roses said doctors treating patients routinely applied the trial-and-error approach which says that if one drug does not work there is always another one. "I think everybody has it in their experience that multiple drugs have been used for their headache or multiple drugs have been used for their backache or whatever.
"It's in their experience, but they don't quite understand why. The reason why is because they have different susceptibilities to the effect of that drug and that's genetic," he said.
"Neither those who pay for medical care nor patients want drugs to be prescribed that do not benefit the recipient. Pharmacogenetics has the promise of removing much of the uncertainty."
Response rates
Therapeutic area: drug efficacy rate in per cent
* Alzheimer's: 30
* Analgesics (Cox-2): 80
* Asthma: 60
* Cardiac Arrythmias: 60
* Depression (SSRI): 62
* Diabetes: 57
* Hepatits C (HCV): 47
* Incontinence: 40
* Migraine (acute): 52
* Migraine (prophylaxis)50
* Oncology: 25
* Rheumatoid arthritis50
* Schizophrenia: 60
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The Sunday Times
8 February 2004
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor
BRITAIN’S fruit is becoming sweeter and its vegetables less healthy. A study has shown that modern farming methods and plant breeding are stripping produce of many of the nutrients essential for human health.
Over the past 60 years the levels of iron, magnesium and other minerals important for the body’s biochemical balance have declined by between a quarter and three-quarters in fruit and vegetables. The proportion of sugar has doubled in fruit such as apples and pears over the same period — partly to satisfy modern tastes.
The study comes amid increasing government concern at the degradation of the British diet and a surge in nutrition- related diseases such as obesity and diabetes, which some fear will overwhelm the National Health Service.
“What we found is that since 1940 the minerals and other nutrients that help to make fruit and vegetables good for you have been in startling decline,” said David Thomas, the author of the paper.
He investigated how amounts of essential minerals such as iron, magnesium, potassium and copper had changed in 64 fruits and vegetables — and found that in almost every case they had fallen.
His research compared modern data with records taken from 1940, when government scientists began systematically analysing hundreds of foodstuffs, initially to work out the best diets for people with nutrition-related diseases such as diabetes.
It showed that, on average, vegetables had lost about half of their sodium and calcium content, a quarter of their iron and 76% of their copper content. The nutrient levels of fruits had also declined significantly with iron, copper and zinc all falling by up to 27%.
Thomas emphasised that fruit and vegetables were still far better than processed foods but warned that continued falls in nutrient levels — and rises in sugar — would be a problem.
Researchers have long suspected that dramatic changes in agriculture over the past 60 years could be changing the quality of the produce. However, the short-term benefits for farmers such as greater productivity, consistent quality and a wider range of varieties meant that these concerns attracted little attention.
Thomas, a mineralogist and fellow of the Geological Society, believed that the problem could be more serious because many essential nutrients such as selenium and molybdenum were not measured until quite recently.
His findings are supported by a study in the British Food Journal by Anne-Marie Mayer, a nutrition researcher at Cornell University, who found similar changes in the nutritional content of 20 fruits and 20 vegetables grown in Britain between the late 1930s and the 1990s.
“There were significant reductions in the levels of calcium, magnesium, copper and sodium in vegetables and in magnesium, iron, copper and potassium in fruits,” Mayer said.
“The greatest change was the reduction in copper in vegetables to less than one-fifth of the old level.”
Both researchers link the decline to the intensification of farming. They suggest that agricultural chemicals and techniques could be depriving plants of the minerals.
Further evidence for the rising sweetness of fruit is provided by American government research, which found that apples can now comprise up to 15% sugar compared with 8%-10% three decades ago. Similar increases have been reported in a variety of other species including pineapples, pears and bananas.
Tom Sanders, professor of nutrition at King’s College London, said farming techniques had changed to meet consumer demand. “For example, in apples this is partly due to new varieties and partly to how they are picked and stored — so that they retain more sugar,” he said. “As a rule, most fruit juice provides about 10 grams of sugar per 100 grams — about the same as Coca-Cola.”
Such trends have prompted the British Dental Association to reverse its health advice on apples. For years people were told that eating an apple was as good as brushing their teeth — until research found that fruit acids softened tooth enamel and the accompanying sugars promoted bacteria. Now dentists warn that consuming fruit and juice is a leading cause of tooth decay in adults.
The findings follow Food Standards Agency (FSA) research which shows that Britons are refusing to switch from diets high in fat, sugar and salt to more simple and natural foods.
The low levels of fruit and vegetables eaten by most British people make it all the more important that such foods should be as nutritious as possible, said Thomas.
The effects of poor diet were illustrated last week when the FSA published research into blood levels of vital nutrients.
Its National Diet and Nutrition Survey showed that the blood plasma of a quarter of British men and a third of women was iron-deficient and that many people may also be deficient in nutrients such as selenium and vitamins C and B12.
However, the FSA warns against drawing rapid conclusions on declining nutrient levels or on the need to take supplements. It suspects that figures collected 50 years ago cannot necessarily be compared with those of today because modern analytical techniques are different. It is about to conduct its own nutrient research.
An FSA spokesman said: “Fruits and vegetables would not necessarily have been grown in similar conditions, soils or times of the year, or be the same varieties.
“A varied and balanced diet, with plenty of fruit and vegetables and starchy foods, will still provide all of the nutrients that a healthy individual requires.”
Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-993250,00.html
ANH Comment
David Thomas' research based on the collation of data in successive editions of McCance and Widdowson's venerable 'Composition of Foods' show a fascinating trend that is echoed in similar statistics derived from other parts of the world, most notably in US Department of Agriculture data from the United States.
We are equally fascinated by the UK Food Standards Agency's approach to the problem. It's all very well to say that detection methods will have changed over the years, but generally they will have become more sensitive, so that very low concentrations of nutrients many years ago may not have been able to be detected. This means that any trend that shows a decline in nutrients (which is the case), is probably an underestimate of the actual rate of decline!
Furthermore, to say, as the FSA does, that these declines might be associated with different growing conditions or crop types is again a peculiar way of deflecting the issue. It is of coursethe changes in growing condition and crop type that we perceive to be at the heart of the problem, together with the effect of intensive cultivation over many years. The shift to intensive cultivation, the use of narrow spectrum synthetic fertilizers (rich primarily in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, but devoid of many of the trace elements) undoubtedly has contributed to the serious depletion that is evident.
And, how to deal with it? Well the FSA seems very cautious about recommending supplements despite its discovery of the poor micronutritional status of large sectors of our population. We all appreciate that we need to see wide-scale agricultural reform whereby organic and others forms of sustainable agriculture become the norm rather than a fringe activity.
However, the Food Supplements Directive could lead to a ban of more than 50 of the trace and ultra-trace elements that we know were present in the most fertile soils of yesteryear.
ANH's legal challenge to the Directive, now referred to the European Court of Justice following our victory in the High Court on 30 January 2004, will be essential to allow access to these minerals and other innovative supplements.
For those outside of Europe, please appreciate that the EU Food Supplements Directive is the likely template for global harmonisation of dietary supplements under Codex Alimentarius. For those in the US, remember that the US will have only a single vote while the EU will effectively be able to cast 25 votes in a single block vote. And we know where the European Commission wants to go with this...
Please act now and help us raise the funds required for us to bring our top EU lawyers to the European Court of Justice where they can plead thepowerful case we have developed over the last year. Please help usbring another major victory for health freedom - this time with global consequences.We estimate that the cost of this next action will be £200,000 (€293,000 or US$374,000).
Thank you in anticipation of your continued support.
Date: 09-Feb-04
*
* ANH Legal Executive Summary 10 April 2005 (PDF, 146.30 kbs)
* German language ANH flyer New flyer updated January 2005 for distribution among German speaking contacts!
(PDF, 2,866.82 kbs)
* Italian Language ANH Flyer New flyer updated January 2005 for distribution among Italian speaking contacts!
(PDF, 1,303.61 kbs)
* Spanish ANH Flyer New flyer updated January 2005 for distribution among Spanish speaking contacts!
(PDF, 133.05 kbs)
* US ANH Flyer New flyer prepared for US - please download and tell others about our campaign.
(PDF, 126.95 kbs)
* Wake up America! Dr Robert Verkerk's article written for the January 2005 American College for Advancement of Medicine (ACAM) newsletter
(DOC, 52.50 kbs)
* UK Parliament Briefing Document July 2003
(PDF, 500.61 kbs)
* Update from ACAM 2004 Background paper on key threats to nutritional supplements by Dr Robert Verkerk given at the ACAM conference in San Diego, November 2004
(DOC, 204.00 kbs)
* UK Department of Health discussion document: Choosing Health? Choosing a Better Diet Consultation document produced by the UK Department of Health, to which the ANH responded.
(PDF, 147.13 kbs)
* ANH response to Choosing Health? Choosing a Better Diet ANH response to the |
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New Scientific Research Proves That Traditional Treatments Do Work
London, 28 September
Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of Royal Pharmaceutical Society of GB
BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE, MANCHESTER, England, September 29 /PRNewswire/ --
Research presented to the British Pharmaceutical Conference today, confirms the benefits of commonly used traditional remedies for a range of illnesses, including cancer, offering a scientific justification for their use.
The data, reported to the Conference by researchers from the Department of Pharmacy, King's College London, shows the real benefits of a range of traditional treatments including: Indian diabetes treatments; Ghanaian wound healing agents; and cancer treatments used in the Far East. The findings will help local people identify which plants to recommend and may lead to potential new compounds for pharmaceutical use.
The Curry tree that helps diabetes
The curry-leaf tree (Murraya koenigii) from India, is one of the traditional Indian plants with reputed benefit in diabetes. Katie Bawden-Tucknott and colleagues have been investigating several of these plants and, they say, the data clearly shows the plant to have potential antidiabetic activity.
The researchers have developed a test for antidiabetic activity based on inhibition of a digestive enzyme (pancreatic alpha-amylase). This enzyme is involved in the breakdown of dietary starch to glucose. A patient with diabetes does not produce enough insulin to cope with rapid rises in blood glucose levels. Slowing the rate of starch breakdown, by blocking alpha-amylase, can lead to a more even trickle of glucose into the bloodstream from the intestine. Professor Peter Houghton, head of the King's College research team, describes this as "like restricting people coming out of a station gate in the rush hour so that they come out one at a time rather than seven at a time."
Extracts from the curry-leaf tree showed significant enzyme inhibition. The researchers are now looking to identify the specific active compounds.
Once the active component has been isolated and characterised it should be possible to evaluate whether the agent is likely to have advantages - in terms of efficacy or side effects - over currently marketed antidiabetic drugs that interfere with starch digestion.
Wound healing agent in Ghanaian plant
The wound healing work is a joint project between researchers from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana, and King's College London. They are investigating the properties of some plants used by the Ashantis, one of the largest ethnic groups in Ghana.
The researchers interviewed traditional healers to identify plants that are used to help wound healing. They then tested the plants to see whether there is scientific justification for this use.
They reported their investigation of Commelina diffusa, also known as climbing dayflower. An extract of the plant was shown to have both antibacterial and antifungal activity.
Professor Houghton commented: "This activity indicates that the plant is useful in helping wounds to heal and stopping them getting infected."
Far Eastern plants are possible anticancer agents
Plants used in Thai traditional medicine and in Chinese traditional medicine for treatment of cancer do appear to have anticancer activity.
Plants from both countries were studied in research projects at King's College London. The plant materials were extracted, according to the methods used traditionally. Their in vitro activity in inhibiting growth of cancer cells (a measure of potential therapeutic use) and normal cells (a measure of potential toxicity) was then assessed using a specific test called the sulforhodamine B assay.
For both sets of plants, some promising activity was seen against lung cancer cells. With the Thai plants, the best results were found with Ammannia baccifera, an aquatic weed. Work is now under way isolate and purify the active compounds present in the plant.
The most promising of the Chinese products was the plant Illicium verum (star anise).
Notes to Editors:
BPC 2004 is being held at Manchester International Convention Centre between Monday 27 and Wednesday 29 September. The conference theme this year is 'Medicines: from cell to society'. The science and technology that underpins the design of today's medicines is developing fast. At the same time, the demands of patients are increasing and the priorities of the health service are changing. BPC 2004 will examine all of these issues, alongside sessions drawing on the experience of leading edge good practice and the latest in continuing professional development.
Declining minerals in our food...and fewer minerals in our supplements?
David Thomas of Mineral Resources International (UK), a supporter of ANH, reveals his findings on declining mineral content of foods. See ANH comment which follows.
It’s not the fruit it used to be. . .
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