Is Vitamin E Really Our Friend – Part 2

Twisting the Numbers

First and foremost, realize that you can prove anything you desire by simply setting up the criteria of the study to meet the conclusion that you desire to achieve. Out of the original 36 trials, the reviewers eliminated 12 trials because there were less than 10 deaths, 3 trials were eliminated because there was no mortality data available, and 2 trials were eliminated because the mortality data was confusing. This left the reviewers with 19 trials that lasted for greater than one year and involved more than 10 deaths. They pre-selected trials that supported their conclusions. That’s just bad science.

But then the numbers get twisted even more. In order to have results that mean

anything, you have to have “statistical significance.” In order to do this, you plug your data into simple formulas that tell you whether your results have a cause or whether they were the result of chance. When all the trials are considered together, or when each study was considered individually, there was no statistically significant connection that could be made between Vitamin E and death. The differences could only be attributed to chance.

However, by focusing their analysis on only one or two of the larger studies, they were able to show a very slight statistically significant difference in deaths between the two groups of very ill patients. These studies used higher dose vitamin E primarily and the researchers came up with a marginally significant difference in deaths between these two groups. But remember, the higher doses were only given to patients who where the most ill, so we would expect a higher death rate anyway.

When they compared the deaths between the control group and the Vitamin E group for all 19 studies, there was not a statistically difference in the death rate of either group. Had they analyzed all of the trials and let all the data speak for itself, they would have not found statistical significance. So the conclusion that higher doses of vitamin E causes more deaths from all-causes is absolutely bogus. This is truly a manipulation in the highest sense of the word. They were literally grabbing at straws for anything they could show statistically. First they had to eliminate 17 of the trials. Then they eliminated the low dose vitamin E studies and focused on those who were most ill. Even by their own admission they state, “High dose vitamin E trials were often preformed in patients with various chronic disease, and we could not evaluate or project these findings to healthy adult populations.” But you didn’t hear that on the news either.

Kevin McNabb http://tinyurl.com/38eoo7