Vitamin B

[edster99]

OK I know this is unlikely to be succesful but does anyone have this article ?

International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research 1989;30:198-204

Improvement of fine motoric movement control by elevated dosages of vitamin B1, B6, and B12 in target shooting
By Bonke, D and Nickel B


I've sent a mail to the publishers but in the meantime, heres hoping!


regards

Ed

[Richard H]

Sounds like an interesting article, good thing I take a Vitamin B supplement.

[solomon grundy]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2507698

Oral application of elevated dosages of vitamin B1, B6 and B12 have been found to improve target shooting in marksmen, recruited from a local pentathlon association, in two different studies. Study 1 was performed in an open controlled design, whereas in study 2 the group treated with B-vitamins was compared in a double-blind fashion with a placebo control group including 8 by 8 volunteers and 10 by 9 volunteers, respectively. The volunteers were randomly assigned to the groups. Performance quality was followed in both studies over a period of 8 weeks, while participants were continuously supplied with a combination of vitamins B1, B6 and B12 (Neurobion or Neurobion forte; E. Merck, Darmstadt, and Cascan, Wiesbaden, Germany). In both studies, marksmen in the vitamin-treated groups showed statistically significant, considerably improved firing accuracy as measured by the number of points achieved within a series of 20 shots at each examination. In study 2 the degree of improvement was linearly dependent on the duration of vitamin treatment, whereas the placebo-treated group, similar to the untreated control group in study 1, did not show any prominent change. Performance quality in marksmenship closely correlates with the magnitude of physiological tremor. Tremor can also be involved in the regulation quality of sensory-motor control systems. Thus, an improvement in firing accuracy as found in both studies is by the same token an improvement of fine motor control of slow movements, involving, for example, basal ganglia.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)


looks like you can order it here..
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=6930500

or if you're near a university, you may be able to access it via MedLine

[Steve Swartz]

Results of my initial inquiries:

- I tried accessing the medline from campus; Bonke wrote two articles on the same study (yeah, I know, but it's better than working for a living!)

- Both *journals* are currently out of print. I have electronic access to a lot of journals . . . but both journals apparently went out of print in the 1980s and are not archived electronically (!?). This is kind of unusual actually . . .

- There were some other articles having to do with B-complex supplements (lab studies of mice and rats etc.). The Bonke study is not heavily cited (in either the generic" form from 1986 or the shooting specific rewrite of 1989). The articles were published in editorially reviewed journals/special supplements.

- The abstracts refer to "elevated dosages" which could mean a lot of different things . . . mainly something above and beyond a typical multivitamin based on RDA numbers.

So, I will continue to try to nail this down. If anyone does get an actual paper reprint I would be interested in the exact methodology (procedural *and* analytical) and any specific results/data tables you can find. I will continue to try to find an electronic/pdf copy in the meantime.

Right now this sounds somewhat prmising HOWEVER since the study was done in the early 1980s, published in some out of the way places in hte mid-late 1980s, and not heavily referenced since then (or supported by additional peer reviewed studies) it might not be that significant. Also, the threshold dosages might be critical to getting any advantages claimed. Typically, "elevated dosages" of *anything* come with some side effects and drawbacks.

Curious as to why the findings of this study haven't been more widely accepted and/or well known in our sport over the last 20 years? WHy haven't these results been trumpeted in our own literature?

Steve

[Richard H]

A very quick search and I've found the Bonke/Nickle study reference about half a dozen times and in some not obscure publications including this one Nutrition in Sport: Olympic Encyclopaedia of Sports Medicine Volume VII

[john bickar]

Looks like the Lane Medical Library at Stanford has it in hard copy. Our electronic access to this journal only appears to go back to 1999.

I'll see if I can pick up a copy of it sometime this week; depends on how busy worky is.

JB

[Steve Swartz]

- There is a ton of stuff out there on B complex vitamins and a wide variety of illnesses

- A lot of it "makes sense" in terms of the Bonke study (ie, some B-12 studies suggest delayed onset of dementia; shooting and brain function are related; therefore, anything shown to help brain function should help shooting)

- There are negative side effects of high doses of B complex vitamins. The RDA amts for B1, B6, and B12 are 1.5 mg, 2.0 mg, and 6 mcg respectively. Any good multi vitamin will supply you with around that amount. O.K., here's the rub: we are not trying to prevent beriberi, we are trying to get beneficial side effects from "elevated doses"

- A couple of different sources list "high doses" or "max doses" of the vitamins B1, B6, and B12 as 50 mg, 100 mg, and 20 mcg.

- "I'm not that kind of doctor!" Somewhere between preventing beri beri and liver damage/nausea/diarhrea you are trying to do what, exactly?

My personal recommendation: I think I'm going to go with the USADA/WADA on this one. I will request the original study from my library. I am still curious as to the exact details of the study . . .

. . . do all the national team coaches of the top shooting countries recommend megadoses of B complex vitamins (esp B1, B6, B12)? I don't know. Maybe they do. The US national team doesn't.

John, do you recall the USA national team med staff or coaches making this recommendation?

Do the Chinese/fUSSR etc countries do this?

[john bickar]

Acknowledging that we're diverging a bit from the OP's request for assistance finding an article, into commentary on its purported contents:

I think I'm going to go with the USADA/WADA on this one.

Sage counsel. Any time you take any supplement that's made in the USA, remember that it's not regulated by the FDA (thanks, Orrin Hatch!). That means that they could have been making anything on that equipment before they made your "B-Eleventeen" vitamin supplement.

John, do you recall the USA national team med staff or coaches making this recommendation?

Unequivocally, no. Never.

Returning to the topic at hand, this thread appeals to me more from the perspective of trying to find a published article (that may or may not be out of print, out of copyright, orphaned, yada, yada, yada). I do work in an academic library, after all.

It sounds interesting - I'll see what I can do.

[edster99]

Well I was also interested in anybody's take on what we can see so far - but without the content theres not much to speculate on. I'll wait a few days and see if anyone can fish it out, if not i'll order a copy and other interested parties can have a look. I'm not convinced one way or the other, but i'm interested enough to invest 10 euro in reading it.

cheers

Ed

[Richard H]

Got my Naturopath working on getting it for me too. Hopefully someone turns a copy up.

[john bickar]

I picked up a copy of this article this afternoon; will try to post a synopsis a little later.

[edster99]

Hi John did you have any luck with the article?

tia

Ed

[kbc]

Ed,

I think UCLA library has this 1989 issue. I will swing by the libray next time when I am near the campus.

kbc

[Misny]

I've been taking a supplemental vitamin for a few years now on advice of my family physician. It contains 20 mg of Niacin/ 100% RDA, 3 mg of B6/ 150% RDA, 500 mcg of Folic Acid for 150% of RDA and 25 mcg of B12 for 417% RDA. Since taking it, I am shooting worse 8^(

Apparently it doesn't stop the advance of time and its ravages in my case.

[edster99]

Dont those miracle anti-aging creams, rubbed vigorously into the shoulders, fix all of that???

:)

[Steve Swartz]

That's why when something like this is reported, it's always a good idea to read the actual study and results.

For a recent real-world example, what got reported inthe press was

"Women Less Able to Control Hunger than Men"

What actually happened was that a company was studying a technique for controlling inhibition (an addiction study). They asked 10 men and 13 women what their favorite foods were. They trained them in the inhibition control technique. One morning, before breakfast (when everyone was presumably hungry), they showed them pictures of their favorite foods and asked them how hungry they were.

The men self-reported less hunger.

The headline should have read "Simple-Minded Men More Susceptible to Mind Tricks!"

[edster99]

Or - just as accurately - 'Men complain less about being hungry'. But that's only my anecdotal experience. Good to see they chose a realistic sample size as well!

[kbc]

I finally got the paper. This paper is part of a collection of papers compiled in a book, not in the journal cited in the original post.

Elevated dosages of vitamins : benefits and hazards / edited by Paul Walter, Georg B. Brubacher, Hannes Stahelin

First I went to UCLA. This book was missing from the stack. Then I had to go to CSU Dominguez Hills. If any one you is interested, pm me with your email address, and I will email you the scanned copy.

[jonncarlo]

Sounds like an interesting article, good thing I take a Vitamin B supplement.

The Vitamin B is essential for correct RNA and DNA synthesis and cell reproduction. As our Skin, Hair and Nails are constantly growing and renewing themselves we need the following B vitamins to ensure the good health of these structures. This is why I don't forget to take my Vitamin B supplement.

[Ricardo]

Thanks to kbc for sending me a scan of the paper. I apologize for the length of this post.

Note: I am not an expert on either vitamins or shooting; however, for 20 years I was a scientist doing biological research. What follows is as objective a review as I can write, addressing the experimental design and interpretation of results as published.

The authors, employees of the chemical/pharmaceutical company Merck, were interested in a potential improvement in a “mental” sport from the intake of large doses of three B vitamins. These 3 were chosen because they have been linked to increased “mental acuity” and mood improvement, directly or indirectly in various tests. Also, B6 has been shown to reduce tremor associated with lithium therapy (not in regular folks, however). The vitamin combination is also that found in the Merck supplement “Neurobion”, whose name is self-explanatory. There are two “experiments” here, both using an unfortunately small sample of shooters. In the first experiment the authors gave Neurobion (meaning 50 to 60 times the recommended amounts of the vitamins) to half of a group of pentathletes, and used the other half as a “control”. The authors then report a time-dependent increase in shooting scores (20-shot series) over several weeks, only in the treated group.The authors note that the observed improvement is present even under conditions of competition. The average improvement for the treated group was small, but assuming it could be extrapolated to a 60-shot match, the scores would be equivalent to going from about 550 points to about 560 -nothing to sneeze at, but they only did 20 shots; it would remain to be seen if the improvement would hold over an extended shooting session. Sadly, since this was not a blind test, both the shooters taking the supplement and the control shooters knew their status. This is the kiss of death for this kind of study, since the placebo effect could have been in full force here. An additional, minor problem here is that “competition” is not defined: is this shooting only, or a full pentathlon?

In the second experiment, performed a year later, the authors used the same group of pentathletes but do a double-blind study, meaning that neither the shooters nor the testers knew who was taking the supplement and who was taking a placebo (an intentional placebo in this case). This is good. By the way, in this experiment they used “Neurobion Forte”, which is FIVE times as potent as the regular stuff. This means a several hundred-fold excess of vitamins. To increase the difficulty of the test they made the shooters go from some kind of rimfire pistol to AP, with the correspondigly smaller target. So, three things are changed here: the dose, the experimental design, and the pistol. This makes it essentially IMPOSSIBLE to compare this to the first experiment with any validity. Still, the results from this second experiment seem to mirror the first: a time-dependent increase in scores over eight weeks. HOWEVER, and significantly, during competition the scores dropped to control levels. This is significant because in this experiment there was no chance of the “placebo effect”: the shooters taking the vitamin megadose didn’t know it, so they didn’t have the confidence boost during competition! Also, although the data don’t show this right away, if one were to introduce error bars to the figure, the overlap between the treated and control groups would be large enough for one to conclude that there is no “significant effect” of taking the vitamin supplements, as defined by scientific practice. The error bars would represent the variation in scores between different individuals, which is what one should always include.

In conclusion, it is very likely that the first experiment was subject to the placebo effect. Also, the absence of error bars makes one immediately want to scrutinize the data more carefully and, after doing so, I would conclude that there is no “real” effect of taking vitamin supplements, at least in the second experiment and, possibly even in the first. The sample size is too small, at any rate.

What to do: I’m not planning on taking vitamin supplements to improve my score. The absence of follow-up on this research speaks for itself. If you think differently, CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR. These dosages are majorly massive, to the point that they may interact or interfere with other medications or exacerbate medical conditions that you may have. Your liver, for one, will be overtaxed. As an end-note, it has been shown that experienced shooters have much less tremor than less experienced ones, but that doesn’t mean that reducing your natural tremor will improve your score; what it does mean is that with practice you will get better.