Multivitamin link to breast cancer
(My personal experience and opinion with taking vitamins
over the entire 30 years is that they were/are better taken in smaller
quantities than the "mega" "super" lots they make today
and most of the harm if not all is created by the binders, fillers,
preservatives etc as well as the factor that many individuals
take them and expect them to do a general good without taking
in consideration their personal needs or contra-indications
such as for example taking fish oil for arthritis which is
a blood thinner when a person has problems in the blood area,
or containing benzoates that affect the lungs,
when the person has asthma or other lung difficulties etc.
One needs to be educated about what vitamins do, what additives
they are included in them, and their specific problems as well as
any changes when starting taking any -or any new ones or stopping
taking any, The body often gives signs, then it is a matter of correct
interpretation. )
Multivitamin link to breast cancer
WOMEN who take a daily multivitamin pill are nearly 20 per cent more likely to develop breast cancer, a major study has revealed.
The shock finding has rattled Australia's $2.5 billion complementary health industry, which is urging consumers not to panic.
In a 10-year study of more than 35,000 women, researchers discovered those who regularly took a multi-vitamin pill increased the risk of developing a tumour by 19 per cent.
They said the result was concerning and needed investigation as many women used multi-vitamins in the belief they prevented chronic diseases such as cancer.
A "biologically plausible" explanation was that taking vitamin and mineral supplements significantly increased the density of breast tissue, a strong risk factor for breast cancer. Folic acid, often present in a potent form in multi-vitamins, may also accelerate tumour growth.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among females in Australia, affecting more than 12,000 and killing more than 2,700 women every year. One in nine women will be diagnosed with it by the age of 85.
The study, conducted by Sweden's Karolinska Institute and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, has been greeted with interest and caution by Australian experts.
Women who took a multivitamin pill in the study had higher breast tissue density than those who took no vitamin supplements.
"Results from this prospective study suggest that the use of multivitamins may increase the risk of breast cancer," the lead author of the study, Susanna Larrson, said.
Multi-vitamins are big business in Australia, with leading maker Blackmores posting a before-tax profit of $30.6 million last financial year. Some nutritionists and dietitians argue supplements are unnecessary, as people absorb nutrients far better from food.
Panic
Kathy Chapman, of the Cancer Council Australia, told The Sunday Telegraph the study would add to a growing body of evidence that multi-vitamins were "not all they're cracked up to be".
"It reinforces the importance of eating fresh fruit and vegetables rather than people thinking they can get more of their nutrition from a pill," she said. "What we've learned over time in cancer is that quick fixes aren't a good idea."
Taking a multi-vitamin pill was linked to a smaller increase in breast cancer risk than being overweight or drinking too much alcohol, she said.
The Complementary Healthcare Council of Australia said "consumers need not panic" at the findings. It cited "concerns over limitations to the study", such as its reliance on self-administered questionnaires and failure to look at the bioactivity of multi-vitamin ingredients.
Blackmores advised customers "not to be alarmed" by the study, which it claims is inconclusive and conflicts with other research.
Professor John Boyages, director of the Westmead Breast Cancer Institute and spokesman for the National Breast Cancer Foundation, said he "wouldn't put any weight" on the study, as there were many complicated risk factors involved in breast cancer.
Delaying pregnancy until the age of 35, drinking alcohol every day and early-onset periods may each raise the risk by as much as 30 per cent, he said.
Nutrition Australia (NA) advocates getting vitamins and minerals from a varied diet rather than supplements.
"Your body will absorb vitamins and minerals so much better from food," NA dietician Nicole Frederiksen said.
http://www.news.com.au/national/multivitamin-link-to-breast-cancer/story-e6frfkvr-1225855021929
6.4.10
Half a century of the pill
Role of Big Pharma in question after half a century of the pill
LESLIE CANNOLD
April 5, 2010
An independent study is needed of the pill's impact on women's lives.
IF YOU don't know it yet, you will soon. This year in the US, Bayer Schering Pharma is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the oral contraceptive pill. Our turn comes next. The company launched the pill in Australia in 1961.
As head of a women's reproductive rights advocacy group, I got the news early, in a letter from Bayer's business unit telling of their planned "national communication program" to inform the public of "this important milestone in women's healthcare".
It invited me to "begin a dialogue of collaboration" that involved, as far as I could tell when I rang the number supplied, my group singing from the Bayer song sheet about the company's "proud heritage" and current practice of "providing women with reliable and trusted contraceptive options".
Already the media blitz has begun, with reports of a study showing that women taking the pill have a lower risk of dying from any cause when compared with women who have never taken it. In fact, the research, partly funded by Schering - and with authors who list as competing interests the receipt of payments from Schering Plough and Wyeth Pharmaceutical - concludes only that "at least in … [a] relatively healthy … cohort, oral contraception is not significantly associated with a major public health problem".
A more critical non-profit-driven analysis of the pill's impact on women's health and lives reveals long-standing feminist scepticism about the first drug in history to be approved for long-term use by a healthy person. It was known before the first pill ever hit the market that estrogen increased the risk of cancer, but the first pill contained massive amounts of it - seven times as much as is used today.
In 1969, investigative journalist Barbara Seaman blew the whistle with The Doctor's Case against the Pill. The book prompted a US Senate investigation that saw the pill become the first prescription drug to be accompanied by package insert warnings. Seaman was blacklisted for her trouble.
Magazines, under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry threatening to withdraw advertising dollars, refused to run her stories.
The pill provides no protection against sexually transmitted infections, as some of those who came of age in the era of HIV/AIDS learned at their peril.
Second and third-generation pills may put users at increased risk of deep vein thrombosis (especially if they are overweight), heart trouble (if they smoke), breast cancer (in the short term) and cervical cancer (in the longer term), although for some cancers, the drug seems protective.
The pill is contraindicated for women with a history of migraines, jaundice or liver problems and safety scares are not a thing of the past. In the mid-1990s, women in some parts of Europe were told that "third generation" pills posed a greater risk of potentially fatal blood clots than their just-as-effective predecessors.
The accumulation of such data led Public Citizen, a US consumer advocacy group, to petition the US Food and Drug Administration in 2007 to remove the pills from sale.
Despite all this, Seaman said shortly before her death in 2008 that if her daughters had wanted to go on the pill, she might have cried, but if her granddaughters should choose to, she could "live with that". Not that she believed no questions remained, including those about possible interactions between the pill and antidepressants, the most common drug prescribed to Australian women.
Indeed, what becomes clear from looking at what data exists, is the corruptive effect of pharmaceutical money on the knowledge necessary to give women the information they need to make informed medical choices. Drug company-sponsored research tends to focus on potential new indications for old pharmaceuticals, or the relative benefits of a company's new drug, compared with older offerings. Little research is available that compares drugs with non-pharmaceutical responses to women's healthcare needs.
The sexual revolution underwritten by the pill was, on balance, a boon for women, though it too came with downsides. The enthusiastic promotion of the pill by population control agencies, the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry - a tripartite cheer squad that continues to this day - led quickly to a view that all women were or should be "on it".
This has largely absented men from fiscal and social responsibility for contraception and the consequences of unplanned pregnancies (bye-bye shotgun marriages), despite the persistence of unlawful abortion
and the stigma of single motherhood.
Drug companies aren't feminist organisations, nor deliberate drivers of radical social innovation designed to benefit women. They are businesses, seeking profits for shareholders through the creation and marketing of pills that, ideally, we can be persuaded to ingest every day for much of our lives.
The anniversary of the contraceptive pill is indeed a time for reflection on the role of Big Pharma in our health and lives. Just remember what the aptly named band Public Enemy says: Don't Believe the Hype.
Dr Leslie Cannold is a feminist, a medical ethicist and an author.
Source: The Age
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/role-of-big-pharma-in-question-after-half-a-century-of-the-pill-20100404-rlk2.html
LESLIE CANNOLD
April 5, 2010
An independent study is needed of the pill's impact on women's lives.
IF YOU don't know it yet, you will soon. This year in the US, Bayer Schering Pharma is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the oral contraceptive pill. Our turn comes next. The company launched the pill in Australia in 1961.
As head of a women's reproductive rights advocacy group, I got the news early, in a letter from Bayer's business unit telling of their planned "national communication program" to inform the public of "this important milestone in women's healthcare".
It invited me to "begin a dialogue of collaboration" that involved, as far as I could tell when I rang the number supplied, my group singing from the Bayer song sheet about the company's "proud heritage" and current practice of "providing women with reliable and trusted contraceptive options".
Already the media blitz has begun, with reports of a study showing that women taking the pill have a lower risk of dying from any cause when compared with women who have never taken it. In fact, the research, partly funded by Schering - and with authors who list as competing interests the receipt of payments from Schering Plough and Wyeth Pharmaceutical - concludes only that "at least in … [a] relatively healthy … cohort, oral contraception is not significantly associated with a major public health problem".
A more critical non-profit-driven analysis of the pill's impact on women's health and lives reveals long-standing feminist scepticism about the first drug in history to be approved for long-term use by a healthy person. It was known before the first pill ever hit the market that estrogen increased the risk of cancer, but the first pill contained massive amounts of it - seven times as much as is used today.
In 1969, investigative journalist Barbara Seaman blew the whistle with The Doctor's Case against the Pill. The book prompted a US Senate investigation that saw the pill become the first prescription drug to be accompanied by package insert warnings. Seaman was blacklisted for her trouble.
Magazines, under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry threatening to withdraw advertising dollars, refused to run her stories.
The pill provides no protection against sexually transmitted infections, as some of those who came of age in the era of HIV/AIDS learned at their peril.
Second and third-generation pills may put users at increased risk of deep vein thrombosis (especially if they are overweight), heart trouble (if they smoke), breast cancer (in the short term) and cervical cancer (in the longer term), although for some cancers, the drug seems protective.
The pill is contraindicated for women with a history of migraines, jaundice or liver problems and safety scares are not a thing of the past. In the mid-1990s, women in some parts of Europe were told that "third generation" pills posed a greater risk of potentially fatal blood clots than their just-as-effective predecessors.
The accumulation of such data led Public Citizen, a US consumer advocacy group, to petition the US Food and Drug Administration in 2007 to remove the pills from sale.
Despite all this, Seaman said shortly before her death in 2008 that if her daughters had wanted to go on the pill, she might have cried, but if her granddaughters should choose to, she could "live with that". Not that she believed no questions remained, including those about possible interactions between the pill and antidepressants, the most common drug prescribed to Australian women.
Indeed, what becomes clear from looking at what data exists, is the corruptive effect of pharmaceutical money on the knowledge necessary to give women the information they need to make informed medical choices. Drug company-sponsored research tends to focus on potential new indications for old pharmaceuticals, or the relative benefits of a company's new drug, compared with older offerings. Little research is available that compares drugs with non-pharmaceutical responses to women's healthcare needs.
The sexual revolution underwritten by the pill was, on balance, a boon for women, though it too came with downsides. The enthusiastic promotion of the pill by population control agencies, the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry - a tripartite cheer squad that continues to this day - led quickly to a view that all women were or should be "on it".
This has largely absented men from fiscal and social responsibility for contraception and the consequences of unplanned pregnancies (bye-bye shotgun marriages), despite the persistence of unlawful abortion
and the stigma of single motherhood.
Drug companies aren't feminist organisations, nor deliberate drivers of radical social innovation designed to benefit women. They are businesses, seeking profits for shareholders through the creation and marketing of pills that, ideally, we can be persuaded to ingest every day for much of our lives.
The anniversary of the contraceptive pill is indeed a time for reflection on the role of Big Pharma in our health and lives. Just remember what the aptly named band Public Enemy says: Don't Believe the Hype.
Dr Leslie Cannold is a feminist, a medical ethicist and an author.
Source: The Age
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/role-of-big-pharma-in-question-after-half-a-century-of-the-pill-20100404-rlk2.html
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