2002 August

Knowing that I would be out of town for part of this week, I asked HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., if he would sit in for me today and he kindly agreed. We both thought this would be a perfect opportunity for him to elaborate on a comment of his that I quoted in a recent e-Alert ("The New Big Oil" 8/20/02).

Olympic gold medal figure skater Peggy Fleming appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" to discuss heart disease and cholesterol. She was asked if she was going to pitch a drug, she said no, and then early in the interview she described how Lipitor had significantly lowered her cholesterol level.

Two recent e-Alerts have generated quite a few responses, so I wanted to share a couple of e-mails from HSI members who offered insights from their own experiences.

Last week, three branches of the National Institutes of Health threw a little party they called, "Mechanistic Studies of Cardiovascular Effects of Botanicals."

It would certainly seem unlikely that a well-known antioxidant source like vitamin E could actually do any harm. And yet I came across an article from Reuters Health last week with this headline: "Vitamin E May Worsen Elders' Respiratory Infections."