Vitamin C supplements: Can they lead to heart and stroke risk?

By Dr. Xianti Hoo, Ph.D (Certified Nutritionist and Contact Reflex Analysis Practitioner)

A study conducted by the University of Southern California (USC) at Los Angeles now contradicts earlier studies about Vitamin C supplements, saying they may cause arterial disease leading to heart attacks and strokes (or in medical terms, atherosclerosis). Only Vitamin C supplements in pill form may be at question, according to the study.

It was “not demonstrated for Vitamin C from food,” says its author Dr. James H. Dwyer, an epidemiologist at USC. The new findings were delivered at the American Heart Association’s 40th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

Dramatic results of Vitamin C supplement study

During the study researcher studied 573 healthy men aged 40 to 60 for 18 months using a high-resolution ultrasound to measure the thickness of the walls of their carotid neck arteries. Using blood tests and interviews, they followed each man’s level of Vitamin C intake, both in the form of food and supplements. Here are the results:

• Those who took 500 milligrams of Vitamin C supplements showed a thickening of the arterial wall (a common indicator of atherosclerosis) in the neck that was 2.5 times greater than those who took no Vitamin C supplements.
• Among the men in the study who smoked, the arterial wall of smokers "had a five-fold increase in the rate of thickening," according to Dr. Dwyer.

Make your own decisions wisely

However, Dwyer warned that the data should be "treated as suggestive only because this is just one study, and there may be confounding variables that we have not uncovered." Another cardiac researcher at Boston University, Dr. Joseph Vita, agrees that more studies need to be conducted. Dr. Vita theorized that because the men were health-conscious people in the USC study, they might have already been worried about hardening of the arteries. That reason alone might explain why there was a high rate of atherosclerosis.

What I am concerned about as a nutritionist is the quality of the Vitamin C supplements (or any supplements) you take. Many of the Vitamin C supplements you buy in drug and grocery stores are made from coal tar derivatives, which is not a substance natural to the body. Because these substances are taken from the earth, vitamin manufacturers are allowed to call them natural.

The truth about some natural ingredients

As a lay person, who doesn’t study and research nutrition, it may be hard for you to tell one vitamin from another. As a consumer, it’s important to realize in labeling that “natural” can actually contain synthetic ingredients. According to Dr. Bernard Jensen, very well known as the "father of iridology" and a respected chiropractor, who wrote the book, "Super Health Through Organic Super Food" reports the truth about how some vitamins are made. In his chapter on "How Crystalline and Synthetic Vitamins Are Made,” (pages 69-71), he writes these so-called "natural substances" can contain materials treated with one or more of the following solvents:

• Ether-made from alcohol and sulphuric acid
• Benzene-a petroleum derivative
• Toluene-a coal tar derivative
• Trichlorethyline-a petroleum derivative treated with chlorine gas (a poisonous gas)
• Methylalcohol-a wood alcohol synthetically made...then treated with some precipitant, such as iron chloride, barium chlordide, lead salts, aluminum salts, etc....filtered, distilled by heat and then recovered in crystalline form.

So you can see that if your Vitamin C is an ascorbic acid supplements it may contain these materials, and they are not healthy, or natural for your body.

Select your supplements with care

In summary, all vitamin supplements are not equal. One of the reasons I carry whole food supplements is because they are made primarily from organically grown plants and vegetables and glandular extracts that are processed fresh and at low temperatures to preserve their nutritional quality.

I have personally been to their farms and manufacturing facilities and can attest to:

• the viability and reliability of their products
• the strict cleanliness and quality procedures
• the wonderful results of hundreds of my own clients
• but most of all to their commitment to use only healthy, whole foods in their products

If you'd like to find out what supplements are best for your body and health, you might want to have a health evaluation. I can help you accurately pinpoint the cause of your symptoms and assist you in improving your health. Just call my office TOLL FREE at 1-866-942-6848 for more information. There is NO obligation.

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Coming Next Week

Are you risking cancer from Chromium Piccolinate? Find out what a University of Alabama researcher found about a possible risk to your DNA in a report he gave at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting.

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Copyright October 31, 2002. Alternative Choices Healing Center. All rights reserved.

Disclaimer: The material you find here is for information and research purposes only. We are sharing information we believe in and feel that it is information not commonly found in mainstream media. If you have any doubts as to your course of action, you should consult your doctor or health care practitioner.