Posted on 07/28/2016 8:37:55 PM PDT by nickcarraway
By
Up to three-quarters of American adults take some kind of vitamin or supplement, so there's a pretty good chance you're one of them. That's a lot of people purchasing substances that aren't evaluated by the FDA, and for the most part don't work.
What's more, vitamins and supplements are only getting more popular, with sales growing 50% faster than those of over-the-counter drugs over the past several years. Basically, most of you are throwing money away on magical beans -- stop it already!
There's not a whole lot of regulation, which is good for sales pitches
One of the curious traits of the dietary supplement industry is that makers of vitamins and supplements don't actually have to prove their products do what they say they'll do. In fact, the FDA is pretty hands-off in terms of most things supplement-related, meaning the multibillion-dollar dietary supplement industry is, essentially, self-policed.
"In medicine, we are primarily concerned with illness," says Dr. Steven Lamm, professor of medicine and the medical director of NYU Langone's Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men's Health. "But the public has a very strong desire to promote wellness. This has created a kind of void -- and things like vitamins and supplements have rushed to fill it."
According to Dr. Lamm, one reason for the lax regulation and testing that surrounds supplements is that the kind of trials necessary to "prove" a given drug works are insanely expensive. The only way to justify the cost would be to obtain a patent, giving the producer the right to exclusive sales, but you can't just go out and patent vitamin D.
Of course, there have been large studies conducted on vitamins' effectiveness, but results can be hazy at best, contradictory at worst, and rarely, if ever, demonstrate a causal link between a positive outcome and a vitamin supplement.
The science of vitamins', well, inconclusiveness has been well established enough in the medical community that some researchers will pen articles with aggressive titles like, "Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements."
Health claims are enticing, and placebos are powerful
Pop quiz, hot shot: which is more comforting to believe? Taking an over-the-counter supplement will make you healthier, happier, and live longer? Or that decline, disease, and death will inevitably strike us all?
If you picked the first option, you're just like most people! When you read that little line that says, "Helps improve cognitive performance," you may know it hasn't been evaluated by the FDA… but you kind of want it to be true, right?
That's part of what makes the placebo effect so powerful that sometimes even fake drugs work on patients with very real conditions. The combination of aggressive claims and a public that wants to be convinced is what makes the dietary supplement industry so lucrative. Still…
Vitamins don't just give you expensive urine, as the cliche goes. "One of the most common reasons why people take vitamin and mineral supplements is because they believe that supplements will prevent the development of chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's," says Dr. Eliseo Guallar, professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "But the evidence accumulated so far in large clinical trials indicates, overall, that supplements do not prevent most chronic diseases. In fact, in some cases, supplements can be harmful."
The effects go beyond an upset stomach. Too much vitamin A, for example, can cause everything from fatigue and depression to bleeding lungs and liver damage. Or consider an iron supplement, which in extreme cases (usually in accidental overdoses by kids) causes extreme gastrointestinal distress, which can be followed by liver failure, shock, and death.
Be selective with your vitamin intake There are some valuable vitamins and supplements that provide real health benefits. This is especially true for specific populations with particular dietary needs, like vegans or the elderly.
"People are under the impression that vitamins are healthy and safe, and so they take more and more of them," says Wolf. "It's not their fault -- they are being misled."
"For vitamins that are not water soluble -- that is, those that are stored in your fat cells -- taking too much can definitely be dangerous… the FDA should inform the public about these dangers," adds Dr. Lamm.
Popping a pill is a deceptively easy solution. But it's not that much harder to make educated food choices.
John Marshall is a writer based in New York, and would like to add that vitamins are also useful if you need neon urine. Follow him to the docks, or @brunodionmarsh.
I have a hard time believing all these chemically extracted vitamins are as good as when they come from actual food. Need vitamin D? Drink milk and get some sun. Need B12? Eat green veggies. Need vitamin C? Eat fruit. Need all of the above and more? Eat Kale.
Supplements (whole food supplements, herbs, vitamins, minerals, oils, certain amino acids, etc.) have made a big difference in my life. Probably as much as 2/3rds of all the supplements I’ve tried have seemingly done nothing or I’ve had a bad reaction to them, but the other 1/3 have been tremendously helpful. If you do your research and understand what health issues you are trying to improve, then natural health measures including quality supplements can be a great thing, even for serious issues. Sometimes you have to take the time to experiment to see what works though.
Part of the problem of trying to get all your micronutrients solely from food is the seriously depleted state of much of our soil. Studies have shown that our soils used to be significantly more nutrient rich, so people would have to eat a great deal more of a natural food item to get the same amounts of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. as in earlier decades.
Farming and husbandry practices have also changed. For example, the old grass fed style of raising cattle produced beef and dairy products with significant levels of Omega-3s and CLA. Grain fed cows produce almost none of these key fatty acids. Cage free chickens who are allowed to roam outside and eat bugs have a lot of natural Omega-3 in their egg yolks. Factory raised chickens do not.
Another issue is the much higher exposure to toxins than in the past. Almost everything people use utilizes chemicals in its production, and processed foods include far more chemicals than they used to. Your body requires more of certain nutrients when trying to detox dangerous substances.
Beyond that, far fewer people eat whole foods all that often any more. Millions live primarily on processed foods and are almost certainly not getting optimal amounts of all nutrients. Of course, there’s also the issue of people spending less time outside in the sun too and what that’s done to Vitamin D levels, raising cancer, heart disease, and depression rates.
Specifically, it is Vitamin K-2 which is used in tandem with Vitamin D.
Taken alone, vitamin D may make things worse, depositing calcium in bone joints, exactly what we don’t want.
But vit K2 works together with vit D. Many articles about it, online.
I OUGHT to be taking fish oil, but don’t do it consistently.
I actually HAVE to take B-12 injections because I have the pernicious anemia autoimmune disease that makes it impossible for me to absorb B-12 otherwise, which as it turns out is a fatal disease without the injections.
Thank you!
[I have green Vitamin C pills called limes.]
Those are illegal.
A man who takes Zinc knows why he takes it.
Vitamin D is not found in milk. It is added, and is the same chemical that you will find in a supplement. Getting adequate amounts of vitamins solely from foods is almost impossible if you are older. So is overdosing from most vitamins as most are water soluble. Even fat soluble vitamins would be hard to overdo unless you take massive amounts.
Of course, you can overdo anything. I had a health-conscious friend who was sold on juicing. He actually consumed enough carrot juice to overdose on vitamin A and turned his skin orange. It wasn’t lethal, but he did become ill and was the butt of jokes for quite a while.
The perfect diet only exists in heaven, and I hope to enjoy it someday. Until then, we’ll all just have to muddle along and do our best.
I’m not
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