Blackburn and Greider

Three Americans won Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine today for their research on telomeres, the endcaps of chromosomes that protect genetic material from being erased. Understanding how telomoeres work is enlightening scientists on aging and disease. Nutritional supplement companies should pay special attention to this research as it may relate to their products.

The scientists were: Elizabeth Blackburn, a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco; Carol Greider, a professor in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore; and Jack Szostak, a professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. They had worked separately and together to show that when parts of telomeres were missing, DNA would eventually become shorter and cut off when replicated. Shorter telomeres lead to slower cell division and thus premature aging, the scientists discovered.

What can a person do to support the health of their telomeres? Research conducted National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences in the Research Triangle Park suggests that multivitamin supplements represent a major source of micronutrients, which may affect telomere length by moderating oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. (Disclosure: My mother was a research scientist at NIH in the Research Triangle Park.)

In a paper published in June issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Qun Xu and her colleagues reported that multivitamin use was associated with longer telomeres. This is the first research to produce those results. While supplement makers cannot make aging-related health claims, they should take note of what the world is recognizing today and how it might affect their business in coming years.

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The pros have rules. The NCAA has its rules. And now there is a media awakening that steroid use in high schools deserves attention.  Newspapers have focused on the subject in recent articles. The New York Times reported on a federal investigation into Tren Xtreme and Mass Xtreme. The Tallahassee Democrat wrote about the dangers of high school students taking supplements that build body mass.

Most of the experts in the articles work at universities, not in the nutritional supplement industry. There is no discussion of the benefits of supplements, just the dangers, such as this quote by a university director of sports medicine:

“If you’re buying something off the Internet and it costs $60 for 60 pills, it’s probably something illegal.”

Fair comment? Maybe. Balanced article? Probably not, because the industry is not being heard. That may be because no one wants to be in a news article about a company whose offices are being searched by investigator Jeff Novitsky of BALCO fame. Still, there is a need to get involved, to interact with reporters and editors who are covering sports, not diet and nutrition. Sports has become a home for news about money (contracts),  crime (arrests) and health (steroids and other drugs).

A part of the supplement industry has always engaged athletes, but with public attention shifting to the health of teenagers — steroid use, obesity, etc. — the supplement industry has not been heard often enough. Who will speak up?

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It appears that the school district’s position is that when Andrew took the supplements he violated his responsibility, set forth in the Boiling Springs Student Handbook, not to use drugs or alcohol. This incurs a 10 day suspension, but the school is also supposed to make sure Andrew “receive[s] appropriate support and education about the use of drugs and alcohol; receive[s] support from school nurse, guidance counselors, and Student Assistance Team in dealing with these issues if necessary.”

Not surprisingly, Andrew’s parents are boiling mad (pardon the pun), and have appealed the suspension. Andrew even took a drug test to assuage concerns that the supplements he took were really steroids. And, of course, they have a lawyer.

One of the comments posted to The Sentinel article astutely observes that since dietary supplements are regulated as a food, not a drug, in order to be consistent the school board will need to ban the consumption of food during lunch.  Perhaps we can convince the school that the appropriate support and education about the use of dietary supplements should be to read this blog.

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