arjan de lumens said:
Vitamin C: Humans do not naturally produce vitamin-C, the machinery to produce it has been broken fairly recently on the evolutionary timescale. I suspect that this breakage may have given our predecessors some rather large evolutionary advantage (since it has obviously not been selected against; if it was just detrimental, it would be selected out quite fast), although it is not at all obvious to me what that advantage could possibly be.
There was a recent population bottleneck in the human species(not sure how long ago, I'll have to check), those are detrimental to the species, and can sometime cause the loss of beneficial traits and negative ones to get stuck(as everyone in a small pop. could actually have acquired the negative trait.). IT's unknown if such was the case with vitamin c, but it could very well be(especially if the diet is rich in vitamin c containing products, we've already seen the loss of the ability to produce several essential amino acids, and also essential fats, probably due to abundance in the environment. Evolution tends to cripple in such ways causing dependence on external environmental resources, and bringing a species ever closer to extinction may it find environments no longer contains what it's evolved to depend on. ).
Iron:
Hemochromatosis (iron overload disorder) is not THAT mysterious, although it is a quite serious condition that is frequently misdiagnosed. Vitamin C megadoses apparently causes body absorption of iron to increase (which is good if you have an iron deficiency in the first place, but aggravates iron overload).
As I've said, some of the best accepted theories of the evolutionary causes of aging indicate that the pressures of natural selection weakens ever more after reproductive age is reached and the organism gets older. Traits that are beneficial in youth but detrimental in old age can indeed be selected for. Again like with vitamin c and the pop. bottleneck, it is unknown if this is the case with iron and natural selection, but it very well could be. High iron intake from a high meat diet plus fortified cereals(often with vitamins) and common multi-vitamins could cause 500+%rda daily intake, presence of heme-iron in meats being easily absorbed vitamin c causing additional absorption, could over the years probably lead to a slow accumulation as the intake is too high, if as I've heard absorption can't be completely stopped by the body.
Notice also that many of the symptoms are things that tend to slowly increase with age too(though iron may or may not contribute to them, as weight gain and aging are also taking place with advancing age): insulin resistance, heart disease risk, weakened immune system, arthritis, erectile dysfunction. We know that in the past, many a disease was considered part of the "natural" aging process, but now it is treated as a disease(though in reality symptoms of the primary disease.), I do not know if any natural accumulation was labelled as such or is still labelled as such, but could very well be. Small excess quantities may contribute, even if ever so slightly, to worsening or accel of the natural aging process over the decades.
That is at least my deduction given something that increases free radical production, can't be easily eliminated and absorption can't be stopped(supposedly since it was so essential the body's designed with no way to fully stop absorption, or so I've heard. Which would probably be a beneficial trait in young age, but not so good later on), which would only present a problem at later ages when natural selection is said to become ever weaker. Females tend to live longer than males and this could be one of the contributing causes as good iron elimination is possible, stopping any accumulation prior to menopause, through the menstrual cycle.
Big Pharma: While one shouldn't just naively assign 100% credibility to them (they have products/services to sell and of course they do what they can to sell them), assigning 100% credibility to anyone who attacks them will do nothing more than opening up your mind to an unbelievable amount of snake-oil. It's not like the people who offer Alternative treatments can be assumed to be inherently that much more impartial than Big Pharma; they are, after all, operating in the same market and subject to the same market forces.
Yes I know this, but I also know who has more to lose. The profits from fresh produce, and a few pills sold at a couple of cents is nothing compared to the billion dollar investments required to bring a drug to the market, such investments would turn to losses in addition to the loss of revenue from the multi-billion dollar market, that maked them make the investment in the first place. All that profit also allows you to buy far more PR than other groups of less profitable industries could.
As long as a group appears credible(say multiple sources, or even the gov. advocating similarly. e.g. omega 3s are good for you.) and shows the significant studies(say large studies, or double-blind placebo studies) involved funded by reliable sources(say the dept of health, gov., etc.), I'll tend to give them a bit more cred than big pharma(who often tends to wipe out their own negative studies and show those that paint their product in the best possible light. Sometimes resulting in the product being so bad it has to be taken off the market. ). Though, I'll always hold some suspicion.
