Vitamin B6 and B12 Supplements Appear to Cause Cancer in Men | Hacker News Reader

Vitamin B6 and B12 Supplements Appear to Cause Cancer in Men

theatlantic.com

48 pointshelloworld18 comments

I take a cheap men's Daily Vitamin with:

               Amount per serving:    % Daily Value:
    Vitamin B6               3 mg               150%
    Vitamin B12            18 mcg               300%

which seems about typical for daily vitamins. The article states that: The U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance for B6 is 1.7 milligrams per day, and for B12 it’s 2.4 micrograms.

and that chances of cancer were found to be higher in men taking much higher doses:

Lung-cancer risk among men who took 20 milligrams of B6 daily for years was twice that of men who didn’t. Among people who smoke, the effect appeared to be synergistic, with B6 usage increasing risk threefold. The risk was even worse among smokers taking B12. Using more than 55 micrograms daily appeared to almost quadruple lung-cancer risk.

They suggest not taking more than 55mcg, while common store varieties are around 1000mcg.

Very misleading title, and terrible article. And you can't actually read the studies, but the synopsis is far more informative then the article. And I'm guessing excessive folate is not a good thing when you have cancer cells.

EDIT: Seriously, the title is complete fraud. Is there no honest journalism?

There are different forms of B6 and B12, and no actual relationship between vitamins that share the "B" name. Almost all categories invented in nutrition are bunk, and each individual molecule affects us differently.

P5P (B6) has different effects than the usual pyridoxine hcl (B6). Methylcobalamin (B12) has different effects than Cyanocobalamin (B12).

Sometimes different isomers of the same molecule affect us differently.

This study is behind a paywall, but the abstract doesn't seem to mention what forms were used. How unfortunate.

> Brasky: But he deferred and said he hoped this article wouldn’t be about regulation. “I don’t want to pick a fight with the vitamin industry for any reason.”

The researcher does not want an article about regulation.

Thus:

> So that falls to me.

The author of course disregards everything that an expert in his field says about the expected outcome of an article about regulation...

Why do journalists do this? Do they want scientists to begin saying "no comment" as much as politicians?

Just eat enough raw/runny egg yolks [1]: "Eggs contain 0.89 micrograms of vitamin B-12 per 100 grams, or 15 percent of the daily value of 6 micrograms. Each large egg contains 0.44 micrograms of vitamin B-12, or 7 percent of the DV. This makes eggs the most concentrated source of vitamin B-12 by weight when compared to milk and chicken."

[1]: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/vitamin-b12-eggs-milk-chicke...

eating 14 large egg yolks per day doesn't seem feasible. this daily value seems pretty hard to reach without supplementation.

Well, I eat 4-6 and drink raw milk. I wonder how our predecessors survived without supplements... In general, the daily values are not very precise! In some cases, they are too low (vitamin C and D), and, in others, too high. It's very similar to the recommended water intake - can you imagine people not living near a stream getting 2-3 liters of water a day?

> I wonder how our predecessors survived without supplements

They survived worse. Worse health, smaller size, lower lifespan.

When you clean data from violent death, child mortality, and pandemics, our predecessors did not live much shorter lifespans!

Do you have a link to the source of this claim?

Yes, I have it - it's deep-linked in the neurons of my brain. This has been discussed here before, so, use your search skills if you possess any!

Guess which body heals faster from a wound and epidemics, and is more likely to survive childhood: one with modern nutrition, or one with our predecessors'?

"Modern" nutrition is poor nutrition. Just because everybody's sipping on (anti-nutrient-rich) kale smoothies today, it doesn't mean that we have better nutrition. In fact, every meat has been grass-fed in the past, every fruit and vegetable - local and organic, and there're studies that plants today (even those that are local and organic) are much less nutritious than in the past.

By the way, I've had raw yolks for more than five years with no issues - highly nutritious and low-calorie. I buy unrefrigerated pastured eggs from the Farmers Market and never had any issues. You shouldn't eat raw egg whites though - they are an anti-nutrient.

goodbye lovely ZMA

I loved ZMA. It used to give me such a boost.

In addition to B12, Vitamin K also increases the risk of lung cancer in smokers.

I didn't find any evidence linking B12 to cancer by itself though, only Folic Acid (B6).

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