CBC continued its attack on natural health of Friday with the posting of another story on its website. Titled “Megadoses of popular vitamins may do more harm than good,” the article claimed that large doses of vitamins C and E are dangerous. . . .

In perhaps the most comically ironic claim against natural health we have ever seen, CBC says that the “common popular daily megadose of vitamin C–1,000mg–is equal to what you’d get from seven or eight entire cantaloupes. ‘You’re not meant to eat eight cantaloupes. It’s a dangous thing to do,’ [Dr. Paul] Offit says.”

It’s not natural to take vitamin C. As if it’s more natural to take vaccines, antibiotics, cancer causing statins, liver toxic Tylenol and shockingly toxic chemotherapy than it is to prevent and treat disease with naturally occurring vitamin C.

As we pointed out in one of our blogs about CBC’s claims last week, dozens of studies have found that doses of 1,000mg or more of vitamin C are safe and effective at fighting the common cold. All kinds of studies, including a 2012 meta-analysis of 29 randomized, controlled studies have also found that a median dose of 500mg a day of vitamin C significantly reduces blood pressure (Am J Clin Nutr 2012;95:1079-88). Research has also shown vitamin C to improve cholesterol and atherosclerosis among many other conditions.

The report then goes on to say that “The risks are even higher with large daily doses of vitamin E.” It then goes back to Dr. Offit, yet again, who states that “If you take large quantities of vitamin E as a supplement, you clearly and definitely increase your risk of prostate cancer.”

It was here that CBC abdicated the “investigative” in “investigative journalism” and asked their sole source in the article no more probing questions.

Had they investigated, they would have found that the “unexpected” and “unexplained” increase in risk was caused, not by a natural vitamin E supplement, but by dl-alpha-tocopheryl (all-racemic alpha-tocopheryl acetate), a synthetic vitamin E (JNCI 2014;106:djt456).

Dr. Offit says “When people walk into the . . . vitamin store, they think that everything is just perfectly safe.” But no one would ever walk into a vitamin store, or health food store, and find synthetic vitamin E. Dl-alpha-tocopheryl, or synthetic vitamin E, is the form of vitamin E they would find if they walked into a drug store, not a health food store. Ironically, then, the claim made by Dr. Offit and the CBC’s investigative report is a condemnation of, and warning about, pharmaceuticals and drug stores, not natural supplements or health food stores!