Intimations of Mortality

Flash! World-Wide Death-Prevention Treatment Found to be Bogus!

Adding to a growing scientific consensus, a large study released Tuesday concluded that vitamin E and other antioxidant supplements provide no health benefits and may even produce a small increase in the risk of death.

"A small increase in the risk of death" - what, greater than 100%? Could it be that some Earthlings actually thought they could gain immortality by ingesting the proper combination of esoteric elixirs from the depths of Gaia?

Supplements "have great biological plausibility, and we all wish that they would work," but they do not, said Dr. Edgar Miller of Johns Hopkins University, who was not involved in the new Danish study. "We need to concentrate on lifestyle modifications, stop smoking and lose weight, and not be deceived into thinking that . . . a supplement will lower the risk of mortality," he said.

Wait a minute - what if I take a vitamin supplement in addition to not smoking, watching my fat and calorie intake and exercising regularly? Will this improve my chance for immortality, or does it cancel the salutary effect of such lifestyle torture, I mean modification?

Dr. Goran Bjelakovic of Copenhagen University Hospital and his colleagues performed what is known as a meta-analysis, combining results from 68 already-published clinical trials involving 250,000 patients. Using all the studies, they concluded that the supplements, which varied in dosages, were not associated with either an increased or decreased risk of mortality. But when they used only the 47 trials that they considered the best-conducted, they found a 4 percent increase in risk of death with vitamin E, a 16 percent increase with vitamin A and a 7 percent increase with beta-carotene. Vitamin C showed no benefit or risk in either analysis, they said. The study was funded by the authors' institutions.

I don't think you answered my question. Never mind, just educate me on this increase in the risk of death. Is it not inscribed in the ancient texts of old: "Be patient, Grasshopper, and your risk of death will no longer increase, but return to the normal rate - 100%"? In the meantime I should eschew supplements like an Orthodox monk forswears putting five grand on Frosty Malt in the fifth? Good heavens, this is shocking, shocking news! If my precious supplements are doing me no good what can I do to ensure that I'll never die, or at least live long enough to see my grandkids compete on Season 32 of American Idol?

I suppose I could go back to this approach. Alas, alas...my candle hath burned shorter even with the writing of this folderol...

The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

-William Wordsworth, "Intimations of Immortality"