Multivitamin Supplements and Elderly Women - Essay Example

?Running Head: Multivitamin Supplements & Elderly Women Multivitamin Supplements & Elderly Women [Institute’s Multivitamin Supplements & Elderly Women There are several on-going debates in the world of medicine, each of which is not possible to resolve absolutely, due to the high amounts of research that supports each of their sides. The media often helps people understand the complicated medical findings, which in their original form, are often more complicated than the average person can comprehend. The several different sources in media often interpret the same available information in different manners, in order to give the user both sides of the coin. This way the information that the media presents is not biased towards one stance, but rather, criticize each side. Using this media coverage, the person is more equipped to make an informed decision and hold an educated opinion. One interesting new topic from this field is the effect that multivitamins have on the death rates of elderly women. For several years, doctors have recommended their patients to take vitamin supplements in case of mineral deficiencies of any kind. It was, and still is a common belief that these vitamins help enhancing the lives of these patients by restoring the minerals their bodies are deficient in, thus enriching their health. On the surface, the administering of such a medicine did not seem to have a downside. However, critics claimed that this manner of consuming minerals and vitamins is unnatural and unhealthy for a human being. These critics believe that a healthy food intake gives a person all the nutrition they need, and that using drugs to get this nutrition is just going to add to the health problems of the patient. These critics reference a 19-year study that the ‘'Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women: Iowa Women's Health Study' (published in the Archives of Internal Medicine) (n.d. 2011) to support their argument. This study, however, is a controversial one. Both proponents and opponents of this topic can derive support for their arguments through its results, since the study was not able to provide strong support for any one side. Moreover, the coverage it received in the media was a large indicator of how inconclusive the results were. This media coverage includes articles, which both, support the stance of the study, as well as those, which criticize it. Thus, one can infer from this that the media is sufficient in representing the findings of this study in a manner that users can make an informed decision. This is apparent in the fact that some of these media articles have taken apart the findings of this study piece by piece, and have derived both supporting and opposing views, both of which are available to the user for decision-making. To study this representation of the results by the media, it is important to evaluate both, those articles that support the findings of the study and those that criticize them. Thus, the two articles this paper will be studying, which are in favor of the study’s findings are “Some common vitamin supplements could increase death risk, study finds,” by Joseph Brownstein (2011) of My Health News Daily at MSNBC.com and “Vitamin pills warning for older women,” written by Adam Cresswell (2011), the Health editor for The Australian. Furthermore, the paper will also study two articles that oppose the findings of this study, namely “Shame on AMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine” (n.d. 2011) published on the website of Alliance for Natural Health, USA and “Can Supplements Increase a Woman’s Risk of Dying? Study: Multivitamins, Iron, and Folic Acid Supplements May Increase Older Women’s Risk of Dying,” written by Denise Mann (2011) from WebMD Health News. Each of these four articles is a fair representation of how the media has chosen to portray the findings of this study to the public. One very important indicator of whether these media sources have offered complete and unbiased information will be whether they have disclosed all the important findings of the study or not. The most important finding of this study was that those women, who use multivitamin supplements from the “average age of 62 onwards, are 2.4 percent more likely to die than those who do not take any such pills” (Brownstein, 2011). While there were several criticisms of the validity of this information, or even the reliability of the research methods, the unbiased media source would make sure to disclose this finding, even if they chose to disagree with it. As any reader of the aforementioned articles will be able to read, not a single article omitted this fact when discussing the study. Each of the articles, even those opposed to the findings of the article, discussed this finding in detail, to ensure that the reader does find out about this statistic. The fact that each of the articles blatantly mentioned this fact, despite their difference in stances, shows that they approached the topic with little bias. However, apart from this, the study also broke down the findings about vitamins to separate categories, about how supplements for different vitamins had different effects on these women. The results clearly mentioned that while these results could come under generalization over quite a few different vitamins, some of them, such as calcium, were actually not in relation to higher death rates at all. In fact, the statistics showed that an intake of “calcium supplements actually decreased the chances of dying for these women by 3.8 percent” (Cresswell, 2011). Furthermore, iron, folic acid, and magnesium were of the most harmful nutrients to take in excess, and resulted in severe damage to the person’s health and causing an earlier death (Cresswell, 2011). As one of the articles claims, “Folic acid - recommended for younger women considering becoming pregnant, to reduce the risk of spinal cord defects in their babies. It increased the risk of death in older women by 5.9 percentage points, while iron supplements increased it by 3.9 points, magnesium by 3.6 per cent, zinc by 3 per cent and copper by 18 per cent” (Cresswell, 2011). These facts are again, very crucial to the understanding of users of this information, and are greatly contributive to a person making an informed decision. There are also several other such facts, such as the high toxic element of the vitamin B6, which would help an individual make a more informed decision about the single vitamin pills that they may be taking (Cresswell, 2011). Thus, it was important for each article to mention these facts while discussing the study, in order to give the reader all the information they may need to be able to evaluate the study in detail. This is because these findings are crucial to the findings of this study. Thus, in order to judge the reliability of the four chosen articles, one must determine whether each of these have mentioned these important findings. This is because even though the most important finding was related to the overall effect that these multivitamin have on the death rates of elderly women, the effects of individual nutrients and vitamins was also very important, since it helped uncover the breakdown of the effect. Thus, an informed user would be able to determine which of these multivitamins to keep an eye out for, and which of them it was healthy to keep on taking. Each of these articles did mention these facts in some detail. Being unbiased and fairly-written articles, each of them presented the study’s findings properly before going on to evaluate these findings. Each of these especially mentioned the fact about calcium is not harmful at all, but in fact responsible for lower death rates. This was a crucial finding, because this is one of the most commonly taken vitamin supplements by women (Whitney, Whitney & Rolfes, 2010), since they offer suffer from arthritis at an old age, and thus need such supplements on a regular basis. Thus, it can further come under statement that these articles were each attempting to represent the study in a manner that would be most useful to the user. Furthermore, each of the articles aims to present their viewpoint and their evaluation of the findings of this study in their individual, unbiased manners. The two articles, which present these findings as rigorous and solid proof ensures that all the support their arguments have is purely related to the facts of the study itself, so that the support is objective and agreeable. For example, Brownstein’s article supported the findings of the article. However, it made sure to give reasons to the reader why they should also support the findings, making sure to mention the relevant data. For example, it very clearly states that there were 38000 women participating in the study as subjects, in order to emphasize that the findings have been derived from a large sample and are thus highly reliable. An unsure reader, who would have read this article, may not have taken the quoted statistical findings seriously, if they had not known how large the sample was. In addition, the other article that chooses to support the findings of the study, further tried to strengthen the argument by including the words of “Mark Wahlqvist, founding director of the Asia-Pacific Health and Nutrition Centre at Monash University” (Creswell, 2011), who is a health expert who supported the findings of this study, thus making them more reliable. In other words, the mentioning of all such relevant facts in the article helped increase the apparent reliability of the findings, thus helping the users make a much more informed decision. Furthermore, the articles that were opposed to the findings of this study also ensured a well-supported argument, to help the reader make an unbiased and well-informed decision. For example, the article “Shame on AMA’s Archives” (n.d., 2011) on the surface seems like an extremely biased article, due to the strongly worded heading. However, the arguments it presents the study are well grounded, and make the reader consider the study’s findings in the light of these new arguments. Instead of being presented with a biased set of arguments, the reader receives a well-structured critique of the study’s methodology and its analysis, each of which help the reader understand why the study may not be portraying reality as validly as it appears to. For example, this article points out how the study only includes women aged 62 on averages, who by the end of the 19-year study, would be around 80 years old. Thus, even with the use of the control group, one can only be sure to a certain extent about whether the women, who died, died because of the multivitamins or because of old age. Furthermore, it analyzes the study more than the other three articles, and reveals that the subjects only filled out questionnaires thrice during the whole 19-year study. This longitudinal study studied thousands of subjects over nearly two decades. Thus, it rises a question about how reliable the results are, when one considers that the researchers only collected information thrice during this whole period. Moreover, this article comments on the failure of this study to take into account the health of those multivitamin users who did not die (n.d., 2011). This would paint a fairer picture of how helpful multivitamins are to the health of elderly women. Furthermore, the other article which opposes the teachings of the study, “Can Supplements Increase a Woman’s Risk of Dying,” (Mann, 2011) also draws on the opinions of several experts, including a PhD, Susan Fisher, all of whom state how the findings are not as conclusive as they appear to be (Mann, 2011). Thus, even the articles that oppose the view of the study ensure that they provide proper support for every assertion, so that any reader who may be seeking helpful information to make an informed decision will be able to attain that from these articles. Thus, after reading and analyzing the statements and arguments of each of these articles, one can conclude that the media has indeed represented the study fairly, in a way that will equip the reader with the information they need to make an informed decision. However, one should consider that these articles are not representative of the entire media. This selection is a widely representative sample, as it is collected from some of the most renowned health websites. Yet, there are also several other sources in the media who may not have represented these findings with this much thoroughness. Thus, the reader has the duty to ensure that the sources they use to make an informed decision are reliable, since this will help them steer clear of the biases and fallacies that often underlie such debates. References Brownstein, J. (2011). “Some common vitamin supplements could increase death risk, study finds.” My Daily Health News. Retrieved on October 18, 2011: http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/10/8256866-some-common-vitamin-supplements-could-increase-death-risk-study-finds Cresswell, A. (2011). “Vitamin pills warning for older women.” The Australian Press. Retrieved on October 18, 2011: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/diet-pills-warning-for-older-women/story-e6frg8y6-1226164296934 Mann, D. (2011). “Can Supplements Increase a Woman’s Risk of Dying? Study: Multivitamins, Iron, and Folic Acid Supplements May Increase Older Women’s Risk of Dying.” WebMD Health News. Retrieved on October 18, 2011: http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/news/20111010/can-supplements-increase-a-womans-risk-of-dying n.d. (2011). “Shame on AMA’s Archives of Internal Medicine.” Alliance for Natural Health – USA. Retrieved on October 18, 2011: http://www.anh-usa.org/shame-on-ama-archives-of-internal-medicine/ Whitney, E., Whitney, E. N., and Rolfes, S. (2010). Understanding Nutrition. Cengage Learning. Read More

 

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