A common theme in the comments posted to my recent essay on why I think death is such a bad thing was the idea that lengthening life doesn't work as an end unto itself. Life extension is meaningless without some assurances as to the quality of life. As reader Cybrludite put it, "It's not the years in your life, but the life in your years."
Three major problems that were raised with extending human lifespan were dementia, incontinence, and (for longer periods of life extension) boredom. I don't have much to say about incontinence at present — not really one of my favorite topics — and I think the debate about boredom has been sufficiently argued in the comments to the original post. (For another take on what to do with a long life, see the Aubrey de Grey quote in the sidebar of the Speculist home page.)
But there have been some developments on the dementia front. FuturePundit Randall Parker reports as follows:
Vitamin C, E In High Dose Combination May Protect Against Alzheimer's
Peter P. Zandi, Ph.D., of The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and colleagues examined the relationship between antioxidant supplement use and risk of AD.
Peter P. Zandi, Ph.D., of The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and colleagues examined the relationship between antioxidant supplement use and risk of AD.
The researchers found the greatest reduction in both prevalence and incidence of AD in participants who used individual vitamin E and C supplements in combination, with or without an additional multivitamin. "Use of vitamin E and C (ascorbic acid) supplements in combination reduced AD prevalence [by about 78 percent] and incidence [by about 64 percent]," the authors write.
How about that. So big doses of Vitamin C and E (together, they don't do you much good separately) can apparently make a significant difference in whether one contracts Alzheimer's. I've been taking them for years (among several other things). Now I need to remember to call my Mom and make sure she and Dad are taking them every day; my in-laws, too.
Randall also notes that how you take the supplements may play a role in how well they work:
If you want to take Vitamin E to reduce your risk of Alzheimer's Disease then be aware that it is best to take E with oil and perhaps a food grain for maximum absorption. Vitamin E with pasta and a pasta sauce with oil would probably be a great way to maximize absorption.
Waiter, I'll have the Linguini with antioxidants, please.
Need I say it? Read the whole thing.
Posted by Phil at January 22, 2004 07:48 AM | TrackBackSee also FuturePundit's post and comments on whether extend lifespans will lead to less ambition. The subject bears at least obliquely on the issue of boredom.
Also, as it turns out, a tablespoon of olive oil has about 20% of the RDA of vitamin E, and a tomato has about 40% of the RDA of vitamin C. Toss these with some enriched pasta and you might get away with skipping the supplements. Anybody know how common alzheimers is in Italy?
Posted by: Zarathustra2101 at January 22, 2004 01:27 PMNeither vitamin C nor E has anything to do with AD.
Posted by: Joe Peden at January 24, 2004 10:46 AMHey Joe
You wrote:
>>Neither vitamin C nor E has anything to do with AD.
Hmmm...let's see. One the one hand, I've got researchers at Johns Hopkins citing empirical evidence suggesting that there may be such a link. On the other hand, I've got your bald assertion that there is no such link.
Don't get me wrong. Skepticism (even of the buzzkill variety) is all very well. You may assert that the research is incomplete or non-persuasive, but I don't see how you get from there to categorically stating that there is no link.
Do you have anything other than your own certainty with which to back your position up?
Posted by: Phil at January 24, 2004 12:55 PMPhil, I appreciate your thought.
But, I'm sorry. I am an M.D. I have tried to save many people, and I have. Also, I have been apprised of many miricales, which have nothing to do with vitamins. Stop being stupid, my friend. You are smart.
Phil, let me say first that I have a square circle to sell you. I understand your scepticisim. I in no way want to mislead you.
Posted by: Joe Peden at January 24, 2004 08:23 PMJoe,
>>I am an M.D. I have tried to save many people, and I have.
That is impressive and commendable. It's also pretty much irrelevant to this topic. The research cited has nothing to do with "miracles" or with "saving people" (that is, curing people who already have Alzheimer's.) It has to do with a measurable decreased incidence of the disease among members of a population who took two suplements in combination.
If I read you correctly, you are confident in rejecting such research out of hand because:
1. You've never observed such a relationship. (Anecdotally. You haven't claimed to have done any clinical research in this area.)
2. You "just know" that vitamins don't have anything to do with AD, and you are of the opinion that it's "stupid" to think otherwise.
That's just not persuasive. You wrote:
>>Stop being stupid, my friend. You are smart
With respect, the smart thing to do is to weigh and consider the evidence, not reject it out of hand based on personal experience and untested assumptions.
Posted by: Phil at January 25, 2004 07:16 AMI'm sorry for not responding. My computer was almost killed by the Blaster.
If I had a link to the actual paper which is referred to in the news release, that would be helpful. But such a link probably does not exist. The paper has probably not been put up anywhere. Maybe it has not even been written. A favorite trick of some "scientists" is to release "results" as a news release without the possibility of anyone checking their paper at the time. This shows extreme weakness, as the only real effect is to get them into the news, and to bias thought as to their pet niches.
Then we all forget about the actual paper because we can't find it. The researchers, though, get some kind of boost in their careers, and perhaps more funding for whatever they want to do next.
[Now, I have forced myself into having to read the paper, if anyone can find it.]
I don't think any vitamin has been shown to do anything impressive in larger than average doses -- in terms of any "result" which stands up, except to cause some diseases and unwanted side effects. Linus Pauling tried in vain over many years to get something out of massive doses of C, including preventing colds and breast cancer. At least he showed that massive doses of C probably do no harm. Large E doses have been implicated in "reproductive abnormalities" at least in lab animals, as I recall.
People like to think that if vitamins prevent vitamin deficiency, then more must be better. Hope springs eternal. Vitamins have been considered somewhat magical by the public. Are you aware of the Laetril ["vit. B17"] hoax? It was supposed to cure all/some cancer. Public demand forced the gov't to study it. It was a zero or less. Laetril contained cyanide and killed some people. The pusher of Laetril made good money selling a book and making appearances.
These kind of things make me spout off that vit. E and C have nothing to do with Alzheimer's. Though I could be wrong.
Posted by: Joe Peden at January 30, 2004 01:15 AMOk, I see the paper has been published and I know where, so I'll have to get hold of it.
Posted by: Joe Peden at January 30, 2004 01:23 AMOk again: I can't get the whole article online without paying, which I would do, but believe it or not, I have no credit or debit card. Maybe, I'll go to a library.
Offhand, I'd say that it is much more likely for people with/getting AD to not take vitamins, especially separate doses of E and C, which require more and maybe larger pills. Thus they will be found to not take vitamins, or only the lower doses, but perhaps because of the AD. People without AD will be much more likely to take vitamins, because they don't have AD. This could explain the "prevalent" group differences.
The "incident" group differences could be "explained" by anything the study did not study, like genetics, or childhood exposure to lead, or illnesses/head injuries, or number of tetanus boosters, or general diet differences, or cooking utensils, use of the ever evil cell phones, other otc drugs or supplements, etc..
Posted by: Joe Peden at January 30, 2004 02:50 AMJoe
Very interesting. Reminds me of those studies where they "prove" that church-goers are heavy drinkers because of the correlation between growth in the number of churches built in an area with number of liquor stores built in the same area. (In fact, both are just indicators of overall population growth,)
Posted by: Phil at January 30, 2004 06:52 AMPhil, Amen. [Not that I know this study is wrong.]
The drive to survive through the magic of substances has become so severe, that I am starting to reccommend that everyone just get it over with and eat about a pound of dirt every day, just "to be sure". This will probably not catch on. Back in the '70's, when a mineral craze hit, I advised people to grind up rocks and eat them because this would be cheaper. It didn't catch on, even though I was going to give them some great natural rocks at a cut rate.
I did see one 3 yr. old recipient of his parents' mineral mania develop hundreds of seizures a day. The neurologist thought he had a rare form of a severe juvenile or infantile seizure disorder of unknown cause, until the kid's blood was tested. Then he became cured. [These people were only my acquaintences in local hippie-dom, so I don't really know what the offending mineral or additive was. I was very happy to see the kid cured. What he had was horrific. The parents had also enlisted a chiropractor to "manipulate" [fracture ?]the child's skull before getting actual care. That should work, shouldn't it?]
Posted by: Joe Peden at January 30, 2004 09:49 AMPhil, I forgot [bring me my C and E], the lead author of the Hopkins study said something like he was "excited", but no "firm conclusions" could be drawn from the study, admitting that further study was needed. Hopefully he will continue his own study. If you look at the time periods, it seems to have been only a 3 year study so far. Did it end a few years ago, in 2000? How long does it take these people to publish a study? Now I'm getting nasty again.
Posted by: Joe Peden at January 30, 2004 10:10 AMI can understand skepticism, a good scientist should be really careful in the evaluation of new studies, considering also all the economical interests involved, but to say something like
"I don't think any vitamin has been shown to do anything impressive in larger than average doses ".. c'mon Joe... what about the new studies about omocisteine and its relation with low intake of Vit A, Folic Acid and B12... what about the relation between Folate deficiency and neural tube defect, or Vit B12 and spinal cord degeneration ? ( and those are facts.. no just theories..)
This is not supposed to be a faith.. we have to do our job in name of the interest of our patients
( I'm a colleague of course ) but let's try to be also open minded...even if drugs companies don't push us to give vitamins to anyone.
And It doesn't matter if vit C and E don't do anything to prevent Alzhaimer..
All my best, Davide