vitamin science - Raymond Francis

[Titan]

A number of people have had questions about vitamins in other threads here, and there has been some good debate so I figured a new thread was best.

A nutritionist friend of mine sent me a link to a radio interview with Raymond Francis and I listened to all of it last night. I'd share the link but it's one of those subscription radio sites that only gave me a free 48 hour window.

This guy has some books and products so I am proceeding with caution but most of what this guys says makes sense, and may answer the question of "are vitamins good for you?"

This guy Raymond Francis is a chemist. First off he talked about how modern processed food is bad for you, and explained some things about wheat sensitivity. Along the lines of the paleolithic diet, I agree with most of what he said. I'll share what I remember here.

So he explained that when you have a chemical formula, the formulas can be identical but the shape can be wrong for a given molecule. I found this fascinating. There are left-handed molecules and right-handed molecules. And the enzyme in your body can only break down one kind of the molecule. The problem he says, is that in modern synthesized vitamins, they contain a mix of the good and bad molecules. And the bad ones can cause health problems.

He has a very back-to-basics approach with health. It's a philosophy. He says there is only one disease: an unhealthy cell and there are two causes: the cell being deficient in something or being poisoned by a toxin. This is the philosophy he applies as he was a doctor and got very sick and had to cure himself. Sounded like he was in pretty bad shape before he turned his life around.

In the interview he went into detail as to how a vitamin typically gets produced, why it isn't bioavailable for the body and can be toxic, and how vitamins he has synthesized are the correct form.

He mentioned having someone show his multivitamin to their doctor and the doctor was shocked and said you can't have that much B6 in a vitamin (10,000%). And he said he was glad the doctor knew that most B6 is bad for you (when it's the wrong formula )and that it can cause nerve damage. But if you use the correct molecule you will be fine with that dose.

He said vitamin C is 50% the correct molecule and 50% wrong. Plus there is oxygen in it which causes internal oxidation. His formula is 100% correct and "fully reduced" meaning there is no oxygen in it.

Anyway, here's a youtube link where he talks about C. You can find other videos up there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciWuH2ZzlJI

Here is his main site.
http://www.beyondhealth.com/default.aspx


He also said whole food multis don't work which I was surprised to hear. He also said just eating real food will make you healthy and I totally agree.

I found this stuff fascinating but I need to do more research. I may try some of his products as the only way find out is to try then and see how I feel.

I would be more curious to know more about which molecule configurations are the bioavailable form, as this seems to be the crux of the matter.

I encourage people to look him up, listen, and judge for themselves.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Bing bing bing bing. This is why I focus on diet 100% and just scratch the multivitamin. I've taken 2 full years of damn chemistry and the companies who make vitamins aren't as careful as you would like. The body needs vitamins in specific conformations - R and S, D and L (depending on which compound you're talking about - D and L are more for proteins and carbs). Sometimes it is very difficult to produce a high proportion of the preferred conformation. Did you know they did this with some drugs early in the pharmaceutical stages? They accidentally made the wrong comformation and instead of healing people, they killed and maimed them. I have enough chemistry experience to mix it with my nutrition and exercise biology. This is why I stay away from multivitamins.

 

[uclaLabrat]

I don't know how the FDA is regulating the vitamins (if at all), but all drugs approved for market that are chiral (not symmetric) have to have both the R and S enantiomers evaluated, and the drug has to be sold in enantiopure form.

The problem is, some of the molecules can racemize (switch back and forth) in the body. A classic example is thalidomide. One form was known to suppress morning sickness in women, the other enantiomer was teratogenic. The problem is, the body was able to scramble the stereocenter (racemize) and you ended up with a 50/50 mixture of the drug/teratogen.

I can't listen to the video here (don't have audio) but the stuff up there about vitamin C sounds like grade A horseshit. I'll have to look into it more.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: uclaLabrat
I don't know how the FDA is regulating the vitamins (if at all), but all drugs approved for market that are chiral (not symmetric) have to have both the R and S enantiomers evaluated, and the drug has to be sold in enantiopure form.

The problem is, some of the molecules can racemize (switch back and forth) in the body. A classic example is thalidomide. One form was known to suppress morning sickness in women, the other enantiomer was teratogenic. The problem is, the body was able to scramble the stereocenter (racemize) and you ended up with a 50/50 mixture of the drug/teratogen.

I can't listen to the video here (don't have audio) but the stuff up there about vitamin C sounds like grade A horseshit. I'll have to look into it more.

There's one of the examples I was thinking of. We learned about that in ochem. Christ, man, can you imagine? Taking something you thought would help ends up deforming and potentially killing your baby. So sad.

 

[uclaLabrat]

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged

Originally posted by: uclaLabrat
I don't know how the FDA is regulating the vitamins (if at all), but all drugs approved for market that are chiral (not symmetric) have to have both the R and S enantiomers evaluated, and the drug has to be sold in enantiopure form.

The problem is, some of the molecules can racemize (switch back and forth) in the body. A classic example is thalidomide. One form was known to suppress morning sickness in women, the other enantiomer was teratogenic. The problem is, the body was able to scramble the stereocenter (racemize) and you ended up with a 50/50 mixture of the drug/teratogen.

I can't listen to the video here (don't have audio) but the stuff up there about vitamin C sounds like grade A horseshit. I'll have to look into it more.

There's one of the examples I was thinking of. We learned about that in ochem. Christ, man, can you imagine? Taking something you thought would help ends up deforming and potentially killing your baby. So sad.

Happens all the time. That's the difference between pseudafed and ephedrine, and countless others.

The issue is enzymes. Some of them are extremely substrate specific, which means that only very select molecules will fit inside the active site of the enzyme and thus be available to reaction by that enzyme. The best example is a handshake. If you look at your hands, they're identical. Well, almost. You'll notice that they're actually mirror images of each other. So, if you meet someone for the first time, and go to shake their hand, everyone uses their right hand, and it works because both hands fit each other. Try going up to someone and shaking their hand with your left hand. They'll look at you like you're retarded, because the two hands don't fit together. Same issue with enzymes (in many, but not all, cases; a lot of enzymes just aren't that finicky).

All these issues (plus many more) are what people have to deal with in the pharma industry. My hat's off to those people, we've had a lot of speakers come through from the big pharma companies and the shit they do, they hit home runs on a weekly basis. Those guys really are just crushing it.

So that's where the complexity comes in. A lot of those molecules, when you're making them, you not only have to find a reaction that will react at the right site (functional group) but often times, the right SIDE of that functional group. This can be amazingly simple or horrendously complex. Probably the first example of this happening was wilkinson's synthesis of L-Dopa (I think at Merck in the 1960's) for use in parkinson's treatment.


Edit: I just read the first 30 or so pages of Francis' first book about illness or whatever. Holy shit this guys is a nutjob.

 

[Titan]

Originally posted by: uclaLabrat
Edit: I just read the first 30 or so pages of Francis' first book about illness or whatever. Holy shit this guys is a nutjob.

It's good to have some dissent here. I'd be curious to know what another chemist thinks. If you could elaborate at some point I'd be interested.

In all the speeches I heard him give about supplements, he mentions the names of all the chemical molecules that are being used so he does seem educated.

Oh and to answer your earlier question about the FDA, the FDA doesn't regulate supplements I believe. They want to, I know, but I don't think they do so yet. They aren't drugs. That's why all supplements need to be viewed with caution and skepticism and you should research who has independently reviewed a specific product.

 

[uclaLabrat]

That's the problem. He is educated (albeit poorly by my accounts, regardless of whether or not it was at MIT). His is the worst kind of book. He uses his examples which are taken out of context and draws conclusions on them that seem ludicrous to me, but to anyone else would seem like gospel. The worst part is, on their face, I agree with a lot of his premises and a lot of his examples, however, where he goes with them usually boggles the mind (which is interesting, because in his intro he thanks his colleagues and profs at MIT for helping him to "sharpen his critical thinking skills"....that knife has dulled a bit buddy).

Case in point: His attack on metronidazole. He claims that the beacon of medicine, his well known and renowned physician put him on a regimen including this drug, which seemed to exacerbate his condition. So, instead of the regimen being faulty, he attacks traditional medicine itself in a sort of "throw out the baby with the bathwater approach".

The logic flows like this:
I was sick.
I saw my well known and esteemed Dr.
He proscribed this medication.
This medication made my condition worse.
Medicine was wrong.
Medicine is bad.

Most logical people would go back to the dr. and say "Hey doc, this didn't work out, let's try something else" instead of coming to the fantastic conclusion that all medicines are toxins and they should always be avoided. Logic fail.

Then he goes on to state "Hey, metronidazole is hepatotoxic!" Well no shit...pretty much every drug is processed in the liver, and degraded. Those degradation by-products can be toxic. You get "toxic by-products" from protein, glucose, whatever. So that's out of context. Hell, you can even go to the wickipedia page for metronidazole and see that his reaction was a subset of documented but rare side effects (to his credit, in 1986 when he wrote this, that info might not have been readily available).


So after about 30 pages of pseudo-intellectual self serving conspiracy hullabaloo, I can't take it anymore.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Ah, Christ. Somebody with a degree finally points some stuff out, but does it in the wrong way, screwing up the whole point. Well, multivitamins are still meh. I'll say that no matter what. And it's true. We don't need a crappy chemist to confirm it.

 

[SP33Demon]

There are hundreds of studies on multivitamins that prove they are beneficial. This guy is just a quack job trying to push HIS product by discounting others. Our government doesn't create RDA's just for the hell of it, there's a lot of scientific research that goes into those recommendations. There will always be naysayers but I'll take hundreds of independant clinical studies over one person. If vitamins were really bad for you, then the majority of scientific studies would reflect that. They simply do not.

 

[JellyBaby]

I ran into a review of multi-vitamins at Consumersearchthat might be of interest to you guys.

I was shocked SociallyChallenged was correct in that you may not be getting what's advertised with vitamins. Their testing (well, ConsumerLabs.com technically) revealed big deltas in the levels of some ingredients, some of which may pose harm as they exceed daily tolerance thresholds (i.e. too much folic acid in one brand).

I take a Target store brand men's multi. Seems to get the job done. No excessive "overdoses" of any particular vitamins plus it has zinc and Lycopene. That's about all I check for, really, then go by price.

If your diet is good and balanced you're getting pretty much everything you need there so vitamins may be overkill, though there are instances where taking them makes great sense (ie during a pregnancy).

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: JellyBaby
I ran into a review of multi-vitamins at Consumersearchthat might be of interest to you guys.

I was shocked SociallyChallenged was correct in that you may not be getting what's advertised with vitamins. Their testing (well, ConsumerLabs.com technically) revealed big deltas in the levels of some ingredients, some of which may pose harm as they exceed daily tolerance thresholds (i.e. too much folic acid in one brand).

I take a Target store brand men's multi. Seems to get the job done. No excessive "overdoses" of any particular vitamins plus it has zinc and Lycopene. That's about all I check for, really, then go by price.

If your diet is good and balanced you're getting pretty much everything you need there so vitamins may be overkill, though there are instances where taking them makes great sense (ie during a pregnancy).

Sadly, but you won't ever convince some of the people here to just constantly strive to eat better and drop the multivitamin. I spend my multivitamin money on fish oil pills, which have a profound benefit and keep my risk for heart disease, cancer, overall inflammation, etc down.

 

[NGC_604]

There is no good reason to take one other than you eat like shit and are too lazy to clean up your diet. Unless you're on the tombstone pizza and wings diet, you'd be better off spending the money somewhere else.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: SP33Demon
There are hundreds of studies on multivitamins that prove they are beneficial. This guy is just a quack job trying to push HIS product by discounting others. Our government doesn't create RDA's just for the hell of it, there's a lot of scientific research that goes into those recommendations. There will always be naysayers but I'll take hundreds of independant clinical studies over one person. If vitamins were really bad for you, then the majority of scientific studies would reflect that. They simply do not.

RDA speaks to minimum vitamin levels. Does it say that if you're not meeting them they should be met with multi-vitamins, though? In any case, meeting RDA is easy in most cases. The majority of people who are popping vitamins are grossly over RDA. I'm aware of the argument that RDA is a minimum to fight disease, but of the hundreds of studies you allude to the science is far from consensus on whether healthy people should actually be supplementing with vitamins or not.

I have no doubt whatsoever that at some point science will bring us to the point where regular supplementation is clearly in most or everyone's best interest, but the question is are we there yet. Vitamin supplementation is extremely haphazard. It's clear that excess in some can harm and yet people grab a multi as if more is better. Absolutely it's reasonable to conclude that some people are doing themselves a net disservice with their multi vitamin at all, depending on their particular situation.

Remember when men's vitamins used to give us iron and then stopped? I wonder what else they're getting wrong right now?

 

[SP33Demon]

Originally posted by: JellyBaby
I ran into a review of multi-vitamins at Consumersearchthat might be of interest to you guys.

I was shocked SociallyChallenged was correct in that you may not be getting what's advertised with vitamins. Their testing (well, ConsumerLabs.com technically) revealed big deltas in the levels of some ingredients, some of which may pose harm as they exceed daily tolerance thresholds (i.e. too much folic acid in one brand).

I take a Target store brand men's multi. Seems to get the job done. No excessive "overdoses" of any particular vitamins plus it has zinc and Lycopene. That's about all I check for, really, then go by price.

If your diet is good and balanced you're getting pretty much everything you need there so vitamins may be overkill, though there are instances where taking them makes great sense (ie during a pregnancy).

Yep I actually have a subscription to consumerlabs. Their tests are good but none of the major brands are ever faulted because there's so much QC (NOW, Puritan Pride, Nature's Bounty, Country Life, Vitamin Shoppe, GNC)... a buddy of mine works at one of the aforementioned companies and said they have to get it right or major suppliers like WalMart will drop them. It's pretty impressive how much these get tested before they even hit the shelves.

There was one study by consumerlabs which claimed NOW Adam had too much folate. NOW tested it independently and stated they could not replicate CL's results so it's possible to get a bad batch every now and then. For the most part, these companies are under extreme QC and you can bet the major brands are accurate because their rep depends on it.

Yes, multi's probably are overkill if your diet is good. However, everyone slips up and if someone is telling you they're eating two salads a day for 10 years they're lying. Multi's are great in a pinch when your social life trumps your diet (unless you're Rip Van Winkle and you have no friends). Of course, there are lonely losers who devote almost of all of their free time to only working out for competitions which is pretty sad (unless you actually make a living doing it).

Skoorb, you are definitely on the money there when you say that for many supp's there isn't enough scientific evidence yet (such as the case with iron in the past) or conflicting evidence. However, that is only one example out of 40 so it's still a low %. All you can do is buy a multi that you feel comfortable with that is backed by today's current scientific evidence. I firmly believe that vitamins will do more good than harm in the long run, especially for people who eat like sht.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: SP33Demon
Of course, there are lonely losers who devote almost of all of their free time to only working out for competitions which is pretty sad (unless you actually make a living doing it).

That's a bit harsh. The top performers put quite a bit of dedication into it. I'm impressed by the commitment of others.

 

[NGC_604]

Originally posted by: TallBill

Originally posted by: SP33Demon
Of course, there are lonely losers who devote almost of all of their free time to only working out for competitions which is pretty sad (unless you actually make a living doing it).

That's a bit harsh. The top performers put quite a bit of dedication into it. I'm impressed by the commitment of others.

Yeah really. Who gives a shit what others do with their free time? Whatever makes them happy.