INTERESTING TIMES

SOURCE
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/01/06/dr-shade-on-mercury-exposure.aspx?e_cid=20130106_SNL_Art_1
( NOTES )

The potentially dangerous ones are iron if you're middle aged and female are: multivitamins, vitamin B6, folic acid, beta carotene, magnesium, zinc, and copper. They used data from the Iowa Women's Health Study, which collected data on 38,772 women aged 55 to 69. From that sample, 15,594 died during the study period, which was about 40% of the initial group! Geeze. The people who took supplements were more educated, more physically active and more likely to get supplemental estrogen. Vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, and zinc were associated with about a 3% to 6% increased risk for death, whereas copper was associated with an 18.0% increased risk for total mortality when compared with corresponding nonuse. On the other hand, women who took calcium were more likely to live longer (3.8% risk reduction).

My theory: people take more vitamins when their diet is crap. I know I do this. I'll eat a dinner of popcorn and ice cream and supplements sometimes. But when I eat fresh organic veggies and meat, I skip the supps and don't worry about it. Perhaps we "older" women are using our pills to justify a terrible diet. Maybe? Guess I better start taking my calcium, though.

Absolute risk increase (total mortality)
multis 2.4%
B6 4.1%
folic 5.9%
iron 3.9%
magnesium 3.5%
zinc 3.0%
copper 18.0%

SOURCES
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/751263?src=mpnews&spon=34
Arch Intern Med. 2011;171:1625-1633,1633-1634
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/171/18/1625
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/171/18/1633

Here's a retrospective study supporting my theory that zinc doesn't damage your sense of smell unless you snort the gel back into the olfactory-receptor-laden part of your nasal mucosa. I plan to keep using it, if needed, to head off a cold. I have several tubes. The NY Times reported that you can return it to the manufacturer for a refund. I'll be interested to see if any of the anosmic people will attempt to sue the company. If they had followed the instructions they would not have had trouble, but can you hold the customer accountable for reading the instructions? There was no warning on the package about this particular hazard.

All patients diagnosed with zinc-induced anosmia or hyposmia reported sniffing deeply when applying the gel. This was followed by an immediate sensation of burning lasting minutes to hours. Loss of sense of smell was then perceived within 48 hours.


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467707
( study abstract behind cut )