[HN Gopher] Antioxidants Vitamin C and Vitamin E associated with...
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Antioxidants Vitamin C and Vitamin E associated with lower risk of
Parkinson's
Author : rustoo
Score : 116 points
Date : 2021-01-14 15:03 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aan.com)
| deeviant wrote:
| Is Parkinson's such a common disease that the average person
| would need to take action to specifically lower risk for it
| specifically?
|
| If the output of the study was "Vitamin C and Vitamin E lower
| risk of Parkinson's and have no negative effects", that would be
| useful. But that is not the case, supplementation of various
| vitamins and minerals, specifically over supplementation have
| been shown to have risks. For example, Vitamin C is linked to
| increase iron absorption, and higher iron levels have been
| correlated with high risk of Alzheimer's. I'd much rather have
| Parkinson's than Alzheimer's.
| hinkley wrote:
| Precautionary Principle.
|
| Among creative workers, which there are a lot of here, MS,
| Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's are all seen as living hells you
| would not wish on your worst enemy. Essentially, the
| consequences are infinity, so if probability > 0, prevention is
| justified.
|
| (And in some circles, assisted suicide).
| deeviant wrote:
| You didn't seem to respond regarding the possible negative
| consequences of supplementing with C, which may increase the
| chances of developing Alzheimer's. Which makes it look like
| my point went right past you.
| hinkley wrote:
| Fair. Avoiding things and avoiding running toward things
| are different risk classes for humans, and we aren't always
| rational in these cases (see also: Thinking Fast and Slow).
|
| I've known a couple of people with anemia, and many of
| those conversations have lead to discussion of its opposite
| - hemochromatosis. The iron and vitamin C link is very
| temporal. If you're trying to increase your iron absorption
| from food, adding it to the dish is much more effective
| than taking a vitamin C pill in the morning. If you're
| trying to lower it, you try to avoid ever getting vitamin C
| with food.
|
| A routine blood test can show elevated iron levels (mine
| came back elevated but not dangerous, which is why I
| stopped using cast iron for cooking).
| deeviant wrote:
| Increasing or lowering iron absorption is easy.
| Increasing iron is also easy.
|
| Lowering iron however, is not easy. Preston Estep, in his
| book, " _The Mindspan Diet_ ", made a convincing
| argument, in my opinion, for higher iron levels being
| extremely harmful in the long term, to the point where he
| considers high iron to be perhaps the largest
| Alzheimer/dementia risk, even with levels of iron that
| are considering "normal".
| r00fus wrote:
| I'd say this study may be useful for those who have a family
| history of Parkinsons or find out via genetic testing that have
| genetic markers that predispose them to it.
|
| I wonder for those suffering from early stages of Parkinsons
| whether boosting C&E would impact onset.
| gregwebs wrote:
| This is a correlational study. So there is no causal link, there
| is a correlational association. I think the term "link" needs to
| be banned in this context. "associated" would be much clearer.
| Maybe the Hacker News mods could change the headline posted here.
|
| It's worth noting that Vitamin E supplementation is declining in
| the US, probably because several studies on its supplementation
| have not shown benefit (or shown harm). [1]
|
| The primary understood role of Vitamin E is as a fat soluble
| anti-oxidant, and that is primarily to stop PUFA (polyunsaturated
| fatty acid) oxidation. Most sources of PUFA come with Vitamin E,
| so this often works itself out in the diet. But cooking at higher
| temperature can destroy vitamin E. The Institute of Medicine
| didn't express the RDA as a ratio between vitamin E and PUFA, but
| they wrote that "high PUFA intakes should certainly be
| accompanied by increased vitamin E intakes." [2]
|
| A natural source of vitamin E that is low in PUFA is red palm
| oil. But another way of dealing with vitamin E status is to avoid
| most vegetable oils and thus lower PUFA intake.
|
| Vitamin C seems a more straightforward supplement, but even for
| that I avoid Vitamin C supplementation after exercise due to its
| potential inhibition of mitohormesis. [3]
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_E#Declining_supplement...
|
| [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK225461/
|
| [3] https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/21/8665.full.pdf
| baccheion wrote:
| There is a ratio. 5 mg + 0.5 * PUFA. For example, 20g PUFA = 15
| mg vitamin E. It gets specific, as more is needed with longer
| chain PUFAs like DHA.
|
| Lipid peroxidation can also be handled with more vitamin A and
| 1g+ vitamin C (to recycle the oxidized vitamin A).
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've edited the title to say that.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| This simple suggestions "link --> associated" will greatly help
| clear the fog around supplementation and nutritional studies.
|
| The other word that I would love to see is intervention study.
| Ultimately, intervention in a clinical context setup as a RCT
| (e.g. use of Vitamin D for Covid patients) is the best judge of
| clinical outcomes.
| zerocrates wrote:
| But that's already what "link" means. If you make everyone
| use "associated" in this context it will just acquire the
| same colloquial connotation as "link" and you've gotten
| nowhere.
| gregwebs wrote:
| I think you are right and we need to use the actual term
| "correlated".
|
| "linked" has a stronger connotation then "associated" for
| me, and some dictionary definitions show this stronger
| connotation as well.
| haltingproblem wrote:
| Associational study also sometimes called observational
| studies are a term of art in the scientific literature.
| This is not semantic hair-splitting but calling what the
| scientists call it.
|
| Link can mean multiple things but associated or even better
| "associational study" clarifies things immensely.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| Vitamin E is a group of chemicals, tocopherols and tocotrienols
| Many past studies have been poor in specifying the form used;
| some even used the synthetic version.
|
| Most Multivitamins / Supplements will just be the alpha
| tocopherol form. But the gamma tocopherol form might be the
| more important one. You can get low quantities of tocotrienols
| from rice, but its not too practical because it will come along
| with some arsenic ;) Also, they should all be gotten in
| balance, not just one out of proportion to the others. One
| supplement that does this is Jarrow Famil-e but there are
| others.
|
| Vitamin C is also tricky, its much more bioactive when present
| with certain bioflavanoids. So it might be best to get a lower
| dosage from fruits (like kiwis, which are high in Vitamin C)
| rather than a high dosage from supplement w/o bioflavanoids.
|
| With respect to mitohormesis, the study mentioned above does
| not seem to indicate the proximity of antioxidant
| supplementation to the exercise in its methods section, it
| simply says:
|
| " Participants in the antioxidant treatment groups (n=20 each,
| out of which n=10 were untrained and n=10 were pretrained)
| received 500 mg vitamin C (ascorbic acid, Jenapharm) twice a
| day and 400 IU vitamin E (RRR-/D--tocopherol, Jenapharm) once
| a day"
|
| In my mind, I would not take antioxidants "near" exercise,
| within an 8 hour window (4 hours before / after), but it would
| be nice to get some clarifications on this.
|
| I agree though, things are not so simple. Recently there was a
| story "Antioxidant-rich foods like black tea, chocolate, and
| berries may increase risk for certain cancers, new study
| finds". The theme is similar, antioxiandts gotten thorough the
| diet may short circuit your body's abilities.
|
| https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-antioxidant-rich-food...
| hinkley wrote:
| > it will come along with some arsenic
|
| I saw a study a couple years ago that said you can reduce the
| arsenic load on rice by over half simply by rinsing it.
| Pushed me firmly into the 'always wash your rice' team.
|
| Probably not sufficient if you're trying to concentrate an
| extract from bulk quantities of rice, but I believe there are
| also ways to chelate arsenic.
| stevespang wrote:
| Take THAT, trolls, who have been naysaying vitamins for years
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > For the study, researchers followed 41,058 adults in Sweden for
| an average of 18 years. None had Parkinson's at the start of the
| study.
|
| ...
|
| > A limitation of the study was that participants reported what
| they ate over the previous year based on memory, rather than
| their diets being closely monitored. Also, diets were assessed
| only once at the start of the study, so any changes in diet
| during the study were not recorded.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Don't trust any recall study imo. I remember the stories where
| I used to work from a study on soy supplementation done on
| obese post-menopausal women. They would insist that all they
| ate that day was something like a half cup of green beans. The
| human mind is far too fallible and prone to deception for any
| meaningful thing to be gained from food memory.
|
| I really only trust studies now where they supplement in a
| controlled environment and monitor all food intake. Not
| surprisingly these studies often show no benefit of the
| supplementation.
| hinkley wrote:
| One of the failure modes I'm aware of is people staying up
| past midnight and thinking of that as 'yesterday'. You had a
| giant bowl of ice cream and a cup of green beans today.
|
| As anyone who has ever had a morning surgery or even been
| friends or pet owner with someone who has had one, your body
| doesn't know 'yesterday', it only knows '12 hours ago'.
| vmception wrote:
| There was some other study or observation that showed a lot
| of people trying to diet really did not associate some kinds
| of eating with "eating"
|
| Like someone would have a bunch of meal-sized snacks, and not
| consider that a meal
| sb057 wrote:
| They relied on patient's memory being accurate in a study about
| _Parkinson 's_?!
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Parkinson's mostly affects motor skills, though there can be
| comorbid dementia.
| eloff wrote:
| Wow, so basically an exercise in getting grant money to pretend
| like they're doing science.
| person_of_color wrote:
| Wow. This passes for science?
|
| We really need a safe, unobtrusive device that can record
| body's micronutrient intake on a daily basis.
| ta988 wrote:
| Unfortunately yes, that's the problem with a lot of the
| studies people are making life decisions on, psychology,
| dietary supplements... Between studies funded by companies
| and/or authors with conflict of interest, unreliable methods
| (in vitro antioxidants) or cohorts selection issues (grad
| students that need the money so they lie on selection
| interviews for experiments or trials)... In those cohort
| studies, what people eat is highly dependent on their wealth,
| education, localisation, jobs... And they rarely control for
| everything (mostly because it is impossible and if they asked
| people to remember instead of giving them devices they don't
| may not have the money to spend on a carefully designed
| experiment).
| blockmeifyoucan wrote:
| Yes. All studies have limitations. You report them and
| interpret the results accordingly.
| adamc wrote:
| My interpretation is that the results aren't very certain.
| eloff wrote:
| My interpretation is the results are about as trustworthy
| as if they were using shiny hair in Instagram photos as a
| proxy for vitamin E levels.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Every time you see a food study like this look at the
| details. You'll be surprised how often the data are based on
| these questionnaires.
| arghwhat wrote:
| Great, then I can also get mandatory personalized ads based
| on my current exact nutritional needs!
| ta988 wrote:
| You sure Amazon didn't patent that yet?
| virtuallynathan wrote:
| This is how most nutrition "science" is conducted.
| amelius wrote:
| > We really need a safe, unobtrusive device that can record
| body's micronutrient intake on a daily basis.
|
| Impossible.
| chapium wrote:
| Sure! Start broad, trying to determine what may be
| interesting and then design stricter and stricter
| experiments.
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(page generated 2021-01-14 23:02 UTC)