FOR YOUR INFORMATION FROM
THE SAN FRANCISCO MEDICAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION 

An article entitled "Fitness Supplement under fire" by Phillip Pina appeared in the November 8, 1995 edition of USA Today. To its credit, the newspaper did attempt to debunk it, but publishing it at all is outrageous.

The article talks about a popular mineral supplement, chromium picolinate, used by five to six million people daily. It's billed as a safe way to increase muscle while reducing fat, lowering cholesterol and blood sugar.

Researchers at Dartmouth college and George Washington University now say the product causes chromosome damage, an effect that could make it carcinogenic.

"The tests did not involve humans, or live animals," says John Hathcock of the Council for Responsible Nutrition. "Chinese hamster ovary cells were exposed to doses 6,200 times higher than what's normally taken by humans," he says.

"This is a warning flag," says Diane Stearns, a Dartmouth researcher. "It does raise enough concern that we should test it further."

Incredibly, their findings will be published in the December 1995 Journal of the Federation of American Society of Experimental Biology. That they will publish this offal says something of what's happening in American Scientific research. One wonders how many pieces of silver crossed palms to finance the "study," as well as get it published.

Scientists used to be honest. As this "study" demonstrates, scientific truth is becoming an oxymoron.

Using 6,200 times the dosage of calcium, or of magnesium, or zinc, or copper, or selenium, or manganese, or molybdenum, or rubidium, or boron, or potassium, or lithium, or strontium or vanadium, or any mineral I forgot, will, in all likelihood result in chromosome damage to the very same Chinese hamster ovary cells.

Want to bet the "researchers" either did not consider testing other minerals or are considering a series of similar "studies" to frighten people taking mineral supplements?

Would those same chromosomes emerge unscathed if one were to test approved pharmaceuticals in the same dosage? Let's give the Chinese hamster ovary cells 6,200 times the usual dosage of Valium. (In humans this would be 93,000 milligrams per day, or more than 18,000 five milligram tablets.) Now observe the chromosome damage.

Or we could do the same with the popular ulcer medicine, Tagamet? Giving 400 mg twice daily to a human patient times 6,200 would be 4,960,000 mg.

What about the old medical conundrum "take 12,400 aspirins and call me in the morning?" Isn't this ridiculous?

Richard Anderson, lead scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Research Center, says the center's own study on live rats found no toxicity, even at dosages 10,000 times higher than recommended. "It's a scare tactic," he says. "The supplement is not only extremely safe, but beneficial."

The New York Times, Wednesday, October 25, 1995, published an article by Jane E. Brody entitled, "Chromosome Damage in the Lab is Tied to a Chromium Supplement."

It would appear that the author puts a subtle establishmentarian spin on the same subject, making chromium picolinate even more suspect.

She states, "When exposed to reasonable doses of chromium picolinate, the cells suffered chromosome damage that ranged from three to 18 times the amount that occurred in cells exposed to other chromium compounds. Such damage is considered an indication of a cancer-causing potential."

Unfortunately, she neglected to mention the actual dosage. Readers might question the motivation for this exercise. Outside of the passing of the green, might it be an attempt, transparent though it is, of gathering those straying citizen patients - those who are attempting to go outside the establishment medical routing of drugs and surgery to heal themselves by adding nutritional supplements to their treatment - back into the fold? If so, don't you think they owe us a more sophisticated approach?

A little more polish, next time, please. This experiment could have easily been done by any high school science class.

Something smells here. Do you detect the odor of rot and decay. Is it truth in science?

Copyright © 1996. The Light Party.