Landmark Study Revisited: Why It’s So Important

The Landmark study has been out for a year now and the insights that it provided are more important today than they were the day it was released.

We are increasingly being bombarded by media reports telling us that vitamins don’t have any effect on reducing the risk of heart disease and cancer and may even do us harm. Unfortunately, many doctors are being influenced by the same media reports and are telling their patients to avoid vitamin supplements.

For example, there was a report in the August 20, 2008 Journal of the American Medical Association that B vitamins alone did not reduce heart attack risk in patients with heart disease. Similarly, it was announced at last month’s American Heart Association meeting that neither vitamin E nor vitamin C by themselves significantly reduced rates of heart attack, stroke or heart-related deaths.

The problem is that almost all of these studies have been done with individual vitamins in high doses as if they were some sort of “magic bullet” rather than asking whether they are an appropriate part of a holistic approach to supplementation.

In contrast, the Landmark study showed that people using Shaklee supplements for 20 years or more had a 2-3 fold decreased risk of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke than people taking just a multivitamin alone or nothing at all.

Why the difference in outcomes? The short answer is that the Shaklee supplement users were taking a holistic approach to supplementation. They weren’t just taking vitamin E, vitamin C or B vitamins alone. They were taking all three of them plus other antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, soy protein, calcium & magnesium and other important heart-healthy nutrients.

When you ask the right question you get a totally different answer!

So the next time you hear that vitamins don’t work and could cause you harm, remember that those studies were done with individual, high potency nutrients. You get entirely different results when you use a holistic combination of Shaklee supplements such as you find in the Vitalizer Wellness Program.

To Your Health!

Dr. Stephen G. Chaney, PhD