The Organic Concumers Association is participating in a campaign to educate consumers and put pressure on manufacturers of synthetic supplements. They aim to challenge the natural products industry to stop lacing nutritional supplements with innefective and hazardous synthetic chemicals and to instead use genuinely organic, naturally occuring ingredients.

To coincide with the Natural Products Expo West convention, the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has launched a new public health and truth-in-labeling campaign called Nutri-Con: The Truth About Vitamins & Supplements. Through public education, marketplace pressure, and litigation, OCA's Nutri-Con campaign will expose the hazards and limited effectiveness of synthetic vitamins and supplements, and strive to create mass consumer awareness and marketplace demand for truly organic, "naturally occurring" vitamins, botanicals, and supplements.

As mentioned two days ago, studies into the association between diet and cancer show that food can have an impact in preventing cancer, or in reducing the aggressiveness of the disease. At the American Association for Cancer Research's Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting last moth, investigators reported some examples of these relationships.

Here is another reported finding. It involves the relationship between dietary antioxidants and oxidative damage in smokers: evidence of effect modification by lifestyle and genetic factors

In the UK, Consumers For Health Choice (CHC) released their final version of the comments submitted to the European Commission regarding the Maximum and Minimum Permitted Levels for Vitamins and Minerals in Foodstuffs. They seem to have stolen a march on the government's regulator.

Almost a year ago Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) set four principals that should form the basis of discussions over maximum levels. These are:

1. Consumers should have the right to make an informed choice unless their safety is compromised;
2. an evidence base is necessary to ensure consumer safety is safeguarded;
3. there is a need for ongoing monitoring of supplements in the marketplace to continue to support the evidence base; and
4. the evidence base needs to take into account the risk assessment by scientific experts.

At this stage the CHC's comments regarding setting maximum and minimum permitted levels for vitamins and minerals in foodstuffs centre on supporting interpretation and implementation of legistlation that provides consumers with accurate information upon which they may make informed, individual choices. Their comments were framed around the following questions.

A study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Vol. 194, e35-e38) found women taking oral contraceptives have lower levels of the antioxidants coenzyme Q10 and vitamin E, and could possibly benefit from supplements.

“If our findings are confirmed by larger studies, women who receive oral contraceptives may be considered for coenzyme Q10 and/or alpha-tocpherol supplementation,” wrote lead author Prabhudas Palan from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

As the medical studies continue to unfold, consumers may see Vitamin D morph from the “sunshine” vitamin to the “super” vitamin. Over the past few years, research teams have pinpointed Vitamin D as a bold adversary to a variety of ailments from diabetes and heart disease to rheumatoid arthritis.

Drink manufacturers have quickly responded to these findings with the fortification of orange juice and dairy free beverages. “Almost every brand of rice, soy, nut, or grain milk that we have listed on our site is fortified with Vitamin D,” states Alisa Fleming, founder of the informational website, www.GoDairyFree.org

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will convene an “impartial, independent” panel to review the available science behind multivitamin/mineral (MVM) effectiveness and safety to help consumers make informed choices. Such a review would certainly be welcome if it is performed in depth and without bias from various vested interests and their regular political and bureaucratic stooges.

The NIH statement said: “As more and more Americans seek strategies for maintaining good health and preventing disease, and as the marketplace offers an increasing number of products to fill that desire, it is important that consumers have the best possible information to inform their choices.”