You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “Throw away your multivitamins and antioxidants!”.
Related posts:
- Throw away the sunscreen! Two independent studies published in the Feb. 2005 issue of the prestigious Journal of the...
- Nourishing a growing baby Adequate maternal nutrition prior to conception and during pregnancy can protect the baby from diabetes,...
- How to Save Your Family’s Life: 30 Ways to Prevent Modern Disease Following these 30 nutrition and lifestyle principles will dramatically reduce your risk for all modern...
- Three eggs a day keep the doctor away! The persistent myth that cholesterol causes heart disease has scared many of us away from...
- More mainstream madness This week I'd like to bring your attention to three articles I came across on...
Tags: antioxidants, food, supplements, synergy, trash, vitamins, whole
-
Thanks for the analysis. I’ve wondered about the supposed benefits of supplements for a long time. Certain supplements such as Vit B6,B12, E, and A make me feel horrible even in low doses if I take them for more than 3 days. I can only conclude that they’re not doing anything good for me and me even be doing damage, hence I avoid them. I do however take Vit D and cod liver oil without any ill effects.
I do have a question about minerals. I hear a lot of stories about how our depleted soil will lead to mineral deficiencies. I currently take a multi-mineral as “insurance”. Is there any evidence that supplementing with minerals can have negative effects?
-
Good post. Most of what I hear from scientists and scientific-minded physicians is that vitamin supplements are generally useless, but it seems the media and many doctors are still catching up.
I’ve given up taking most supplements, though I’m taking some calcium/vitamin D combo at the moment because I heard of some benefit. Also, as a vegan, it seems wise to take a Vitamin B12 since there isn’t much of that in my diet. For omega 3s there is algal oil instead of fish oil, though I haven’t noticed that taking or not taking it affects me at all, but maybe it does invisibly.
Also, I thought bacteria in the gut made enough vitamin K for us? -
Hm, interesting. From where have humans gotten their K2 historically, if it’s not in very many foods?
-
Awesome post, Chris!
It’s great to see your continuos fight against reductionism in medicine.
Some notes and comments:
Vitamin D: In line with your general line of thought, I now think that the suggested 80 ng/ml target for vitamin D blood levels for cancer protection as suggested by the Vitamin D Council seems dubious. As far as I know no study has ever checked levels in hunter gatherers, and absolutely no-one has controlled for numerous potential contextual factors. A post at Hyperlipid discussing how the amount of meat in the diet may modulate the need for vitamin D, e.g, rickets only occurring when meat intake is low, really got me thinking. (I’m now happy with my 50 ng/dl level, and will not try to ramp up to reach 80.)Iodine: What do you think of iodine? American soils seem to be particularly deficient in iodine, and ironically when we start eating less salty processed foods we are also less exposed to the involuntary iodine supplementation that goes with that territory. (As far as anecdotes go, I think there is a thyroid epidemic going on.)
Cod liver oil: What’s your stance on the vitamin A content? There is a confusing argument going on in regard to if vitamin A is either synergistic or antagonistic to D. The ancestral template suggests that A in levels available in foods like liver is perfectly fine, but is cod liver oil, as a concentrated source, an ancestral food?
Liver: This seems to be nature’s own multi vitamin and mineral “supplement”. The problem I see with it is that unless it’s obtained from pristine sources, it may also contain a large amount of toxins. (Think CAFO beef liver vs. grass fed beef liver.)
Anti oxidants: I note that the more sensible supplement promoting organisation Life Extension Foundation has gradually replaced isolated compounds with various plant extracts in their vitamin products. I use their “Life Extension Mix” occasionally (and in combination with a fatty meal) as if it’s just another food in my fridge on the premise that my diet is probably a bit low in fresh vegetables and organ meats.
The need for micro nutrients vs. inadequate supply: I think that one could argue that with the assault of “novel” compounds that our bodies have to deal with today, the need for adequate nutrition, including getting enough of the various trace minerals that are used in detox-pathways, has never been higher. Unfortunately, our food supply has gradually become more and more inadequate in terms of meeting this need. The question then becomes how to bridge the gap in a practical, affordable way. The task seems daunting since we can’t even know if foods that traditionally have provided adequate levels of the nutrients we need are really doing so today. (Food for thought!)
-
The study on Vitamin E and Vitamin A that caused increased mortality was faulty as the researchers had a poor understanding of vitamins.
The Vitamin E they studied was the synthetic Vitamin E not the Gamma E which is the natural Vitamin E. Second the dosage on the Vitamin A was lower than the RDA for Vitamin A.
B Vitamins do reduce your homocysteine level. My level was cut in half once I started supplementing B Vitamins.
My research shows that generally Vitamin studies are poor conducted, poorly designed and the researchers have no idea what they are doing.
The best way to study the effects of Vitamins is conduct a n=1 study on yourself and see if it affects important blood markers.
-
Sounds like what Pollan was preaching in “In Defense of Food”. Glad to see the establishment catching on.
And I can vouch for magnesium supplementation. I was having a lot of odd problems, heart palpitations being one of them. After much googling I came across a chat board where someone suggested magnesium deficiency for similar symptoms. Not long after starting to take it, the palpitations went away. -
Well, I was looking for a study I remembered reading with the conclusion that in general those people taking any types of supplements were healthier…but instead I found this scary abstract that concludes: “Multivitamin use was associated with a statistically significant increased risk of breast cancer.”
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.28837v1
In any case, thanks for the thought-provoking articles and healthy advice! -
This is another good article, as per usual on your site. I’ve been formulating whole food supplements for years and am amazed at the fact that isolates and synthetics are called “nutrition.” Nutrition is what we get from food, not from isolated chemicals. Plus, few people know that most of the vitamins supplements today are manufactured by Big Pharma. And they are used in the same way as drugs — pharmacologically. In other words, these pills are used to quell, stimulate or suppress a symptom, but not to offer real nutrition.
-
I don’t know if you pay attention to individual vitamins, but when I do take them (not often) I take Garden of Life’s raw/food based vitamins. The only exception is a CoQ10 Vitamin I buy from another big “natural” company, though I have fogotten the brand off the top of my head. They are usually only found in WFs or health food stores and have an orange label on everything.
Anyways, I usually only take them when I start to feel stuffy. A while ago I caught something that I couldn’t kick. I took a slew of suppliments after being miserable for two weeks and felt better over night. Now when I start to feel stuffy I take at least D3 (raw) and the CoQ10 and I feel better over night, no matter at what time of my illness I take the vitamins. It does seem that they are helping.
I don’t take them on a regular basis though, with the exception of FLCO, but I have been slacking on that lately.
-
Wait a second. Shredded Wheat is just that, wheat. No added vitamins or other nutritive additions. That cereal and maybe Grape Nuts are probably the most natural and least modified items on the market. Yes, grains are a problem for many, but don’t go knocking Shredded Wheat. Knock Total, with its cheap vitamins, or other MUCH more heavily processed cold cereals! (I got a soft spot for SWheat – always liked those big woven biscuits as a kid).
-
Yeah, I know. Love that cold cereal in milk. All of it is not too good, I agree. My only point was that, given cereal consumption being what it is, Shredded Wheat is probably one of the best of the entire group. Just did not want anyone knocking my childhood favorite! <VBG>
19 comments
Comments feed for this article