Good advice, Fiona. Good nutrition should come from food primarily, but vitamins can be taken on an as needed basis. But as regards to the anti-vitamin articles from Great Britain, I posted this on the research forum:

Those who read the July 6, 2002 news articles against vitamins should take a closer look at the study. What the study said was that taking Vitamin E, C, and beta carotene did not reduce mortality rates in patients who already had heart disease and diabetes. Does this mean the vitamins had no effects? The study didn't say this. Does Vitamin C still boost the immune system? There is no proof against this. They just can't prove that it prolongs your life if you already have heart disease and diabetes as did the people in the study. This study did not look at and did not show whether these vitamins could prevent heart disease and diabetes.

Dr. Eades in PPLP stated that in the CARET study the same antioxidant vitamins did not prevent smokers from having lung cancer. That didn't mean these vitamins weren't working. It's just that the people hadn't stopped smoking. In the Heart Study below that showed people had no improvement from supplements, how much do you want to bet that they were on a low-fat/high-carbohydrate diet? They were undoing what the vitamins were doing for them. Dr. Eades points out that, yes, it is better to get your vitamins from fruits and vegetables because they contain a combination of antioxidants and phytochemicals by the thousands that can't possibly be put into a pill. But on the other hand, antioxidant vitamin supplements do augment us when we didn't eat enough fruits and vegetables. The new study below showed that blood vitamin concentrations are increased by taking pill supplements. Therefore, the antioxidant properties of these vitamins were available to the body to disable free radicals. However, as Dr. Eades pointed out in the lung cancer study, in advanced disease states or where the body is trying to fight constant daily exposure to tobacco smoke, the body may use the normally bad free radicals to a good purpose.

The point is that this study did not prove that vitamin pills had no effect. This study only proved that in disease states where other forces were working against the vitamin pills, the vitamin pills alone were not enough to overcome the disease. But then again who of us ever said that vitamins cure heart disease and diabetes? The only thing that can do that effectively is a low-carb diet. Vitamins are just a help along the way. They are not a miracle that works against the low-fat/high-carb diets that these doctors put their patients on.

And that's the bottom line conclusion of this study: Vitamins do not cure heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Duuuhhhh!


STUDY:
Lancet 2002 Jul 6;360(9326):23-33

MRC/BHF Heart Protection Study of antioxidant vitamin supplementation in 20,536 high-risk individuals: a randomised placebo-controlled trial.

Heart Protection Study Collaborative Group.

BACKGROUND: It has been suggested that increased intake of various antioxidant vitamins reduces the incidence rates of vascular disease, cancer, and other adverse outcomes. METHODS: 20,536 UK adults (aged 40-80) with coronary disease, other occlusive arterial disease, or diabetes were randomly allocated to receive antioxidant vitamin supplementation (600 mg vitamin E, 250 mg vitamin C, and 20 mg beta-carotene daily) or matching placebo. Intention-to-treat comparisons of outcome were conducted between all vitamin-allocated and all placebo-allocated participants. An average of 83% of participants in each treatment group remained compliant during the scheduled 5-year treatment period. Allocation to this vitamin regimen approximately doubled the plasma concentration of alpha-tocopherol, increased that of vitamin C by one-third, and quadrupled that of beta-carotene. Primary outcomes were major coronary events (for overall analyses) and fatal or non-fatal vascular events (for subcategory analyses), with subsidiary assessments of cancer and of other major morbidity. FINDINGS: There were no significant differences in all-cause mortality (1446 [14.1%] vitamin-allocated vs 1389 [13.5%] placebo-allocated), or in deaths due to vascular (878 [8.6%] vs 840 [8.2%]) or non-vascular (568 [5.5%] vs 549 [5.3%]) causes. Nor were there any significant differences in the numbers of participants having non-fatal myocardial infarction or coronary death (1063 [10.4%] vs 1047 [10.2%]), non-fatal or fatal stroke (511 [5.0%] vs 518 [5.0%]), or coronary or non-coronary revascularisation (1058 [10.3%] vs 1086 [10.6%]). For the first occurrence of any of these "major vascular events", there were no material differences either overall (2306 [22.5%] vs 2312 [22.5%]; event rate ratio 1.00 [95% CI 0.94-1.06]) or in any of the various subcategories considered. There were no significant effects on cancer incidence or on hospitalisation for any other non-vascular cause. INTERPRETATION: Among the high-risk individuals that were studied, these antioxidant vitamins appeared to be safe. But, although this regimen increased blood vitamin concentrations substantially, it did not produce any significant reductions in the 5-year mortality from, or incidence of, any type of vascular disease, cancer, or other major outcome.