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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat the Dietary Supplement Industry Does Not Want You to Know
All the ways that taking vitamins may actually do you more harm than good.A recent study by researchers at Oxford University, and reported in the medical journal The Lancet, tells us that vitamin supplements offer no protection against cancer, stroke, heart disease, indeed ANY disease outside of maybe beri beri and scurvy (so maybe good for 15th century explorers.) In a controlled study of 20,000 people, over five years, scientists found that those taking vitamins were just as likely to die from any cause as those taking dummy pills. It also found no protection against heart attack, stroke, cancer, bone disease, brain decline, or eye disease. Lung diseases such as asthma were as prevalent among vitamin takers as dummy pill takers. Help with cataracts? Nope. Osteoporosis? Nuh uh. Professor Rory Collins, lead researcher on the study noted, 'We continued the treatment for five years and we saw absolutely no effect on vascular disease or any cancers.
David Agus, a doctor and author of The End of Illness summed up a whole bunch of science on Jon Stewarts The Daily Show: There have been 50 large-scale studies on supplements, he said, and not one has shown a benefit in heart disease or cancer. I dont get it. Why are we taking these?
Longstanding and understandable distrust of the pharmaceutical industry may partially answer that question. Americans suspect that money, not concern for health, drives that industry, and to some extent, they are correct. But its possible that Big Vita may be just as profit driven as Big Pharma, Lauren Steicher, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, told US News and World Report. And more ominously, while big drug companies are regulated and overseen by the Food and Drug Administration, consumers have no such protection from the supplement industry, which was exempted from oversight with the 1994 enactment of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. That act basically allowed the industry to police itself, which is seldom a good idea. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine found that this law is largely unenforced. "Does the FDA make mistakes? Dr. Steicher said. Yes. But they're the only protection we've got to make sure greed doesn't get in the way of science." The Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, an independent research and publishing entity, noted that of 30,000 products rated by them, under one percent were rated highly for safety, effectiveness, and quality. Thats 300 products out of 30,000.
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/what-dietary-supplement-industry-does-not-want-you-know
eShirl
(18,490 posts)It seems to switch back and forth.
madokie
(51,076 posts)But I'm a person, guy, who won't/don't take any of them, vitamins or supplements.
I specifically asked my doctor if I should be taking any vitamins and he said NO, that my blood work comes back as being from a healthy, as a horse, person. I guess horses are some healthy animals
djean111
(14,255 posts)I take D3, and my levels are fine.
I think I owe part my good health at 68 to not taking prescriptions at all. And my doctor asked me about my diet, I said Atkins. She laughed, but then cut out carbs and lost a lot of weight and looks wonderful.
eShirl
(18,490 posts)When I stop taking my supplements, my knee joints get so painful a cane is necessary for walking and it feels like a bee sting even at rest. When I keep up the supplements I don't need the cane and only occasionally have a little short-lived knee pain after really pushing it while exercising.
I'm certainly not taking osteo-biflex to prevent asthma, reduce my chance of getting cancer, or any of the other stupid examples provided in the article of things that supplements and/or vitamins fail to do.
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)Many people need to for various reasons.
djean111
(14,255 posts)I would still rather take some vitamin d3 than take some drug that may cause damage much worse than what I was trying to fix.
Been a concerted effort at attacking supplements lately. That $32 billion not in Pharma's coffers must really bite.
Americans suspect that money, not concern for health, drives that industry, and to some extent, they are correct.
Surely, then, we are free to pick our poison - and I believe I would rather take something deemed ineffective than poisonous. Don't trust the FDA much, either, so their imprimatur isn't something I look for. Helps to be immune to what I am sure is considered "stinging", and condescending criticism.
We are all going to die eventually, anyway. I'll pick the coffer I want to contribute to, thank you very much.
And I will pick what kind of food I want to eat; if there are no informative labels, I will not buy it.
The foaming at the mouth concerning wanting to know about GMOs is very instructive. How dare people want to know exactly what they are eating!
KurtNYC
(14,549 posts)Studies have proven that eating combinations like spinach with cheese, beans and rice, tomatoes with green beans leads to the absorption of significantly more nutrients than eating any of those foods alone. This is especially true for micro-nutrients like the ones sold as pills.
Healthy gut bacteria also influence the uptake of nutrients. One recent study found changes in gut bacteria were triggered by changes in caloric intake. This lends more credence to the idea that "a calculated calorie is not a calorie for everyone."
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/731326
Bottom line: real food is the best way to get nutrients into your body in a form that your body can absorb and use. The idea that you can mechanically separate nutrients, put them in pills and then expect that same results as eating good food is flawed. We are better off spending our money on good food than on supplements.
djean111
(14,255 posts)Food is being artificially genetically manipulated for better field to shelf longevity, easier packing, ability to live through drenching with herbicides, etc. Nothing about nutritional value. Pretty much anything in a box only has as much nutrition as has been (ironically) added.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)folks using those soylent 'food replacement' mixes.
Godhumor
(6,437 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)taking more than your body needs of any micronutrient is fairly pointless, and yeah, it'll just get excreted. Taking such 'supplements' is supposed to 'supplement' a poor diet that is actually deficient in such. If you're already getting what you need from the food you eat, you don't need them. (And they're called 'micronutrients' because you really don't tend to need a lot of them.) So if you live on dingdongs, cheetos, and diet dew, by all means take vitamins.
Second, if you want to complain about problems taking vitamins doesn't solve, you should probably look directly at problems caused by vitamin deficiencies. Scurvy and beri beri get thumbs up because that's what they are - specific vitamin deficiency diseases. Heart attack, stroke, COPD, etc, etc, etc, have many main drivers...but none of those main drivers are vitamin deficiencies. So noting that taking vitamins doesn't help prevent them is like complaining that you can't hammer a nail with a saw.
djean111
(14,255 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)Last edited Sat Jul 5, 2014, 09:56 AM - Edit history (1)
Nutrition is not about efficiency.
Anything can be used or abused. I don't take multis, but for various things individual supplements can be helpful, if you don't overdo it.
(No, I don't give advice.)
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Which is why my comment was nuanced, and noted both good and bad points about taking such. You can waste money by taking things you don't need, but if you have a specific need that IS addressed by a specific supplement, then it's worth taking.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)That said, thanks for making it clear. Good varied food is better than any concentrate, but that doesn't mean you never can use some extra chromium or iron or Vit. D or Co-Q or whatever.
Edit: the deficiency point of view is a much better way to look at the problem, it avoids the tendency to think more is better.
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)for various reasons, such as absorption disorders or (in the case of Vitamin D) either needing to avoid the sun or living in a northern latitude.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)I also take calcium for my bones. Many doctors have told me to do that. Other than those I take a multi-vitamin and extra Biotin for my nails (it absolutely DOES make my nails and hair stronger).
There are many, many vitamin scams but some are truly valuable.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)to bring it up.
I wonder if the value of B vitamin was all just a CYA on the part of my docs meant to make me think they were addressing a problem they created with too high doses of 'statin, or if the evidence of value in such vitamin therapy just falls outside the province of this reported study?
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)On doctor's recommendation.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)because it does not cure cancer. It's just idiotic. The list of things aspirin does not cure is almost endless, one could easily show it does not treat diabetes nor HIV. So don't take any. If you think it helps
your headache, that's just your imagination. If it does not dissolve malignant tumors, it is not medicine.
pnwmom
(108,977 posts)The benefits of Vitamin D supplementation for particular people have been shown in numerous studies.
Multivitamins given to all healthy people haven't been shown to help. But targeted groups of people benefit from supplements. My doctors, based on blood tests and medical history, have me taking ferritin for low ferritin levels that were causing leg jerks at night, Vitamin B-12 because I'm not absorbing it properly, and Vitamin D, because my blood levels are low without it and my skin doctor wants me using sunscreen when I'm outside. Vitamin D is necessary for calcium absorption which, of course, "Dr" Angus doesn't bother to mention. He's too busy saying what it doesn't do.