What the Dietary Supplement Industry Does Not Want You to Know

[madokie]

All the ways that taking vitamins may actually do you more harm than good.

The nutritional supplement industry is big. Real big. Like $32 billion a year big, according to Forbes Magazine. And that amount, says Forbes, is expected to double by 2021. That ‘s a lot of vitamins. In fact, almost half of the U.S. population takes vitamins. Must be good for what ails you, right? Well, maybe not. Those billions of dollars go very far to enrich the supplement industry, but, according to numerous scientific studies, virtually nowhere to enrich your health. In fact, because your body excretes out many of the vitamins it can’t use, you might say you are literally flushing that money right down the toilet.

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 Stewart’s “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 don’t 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 it’s 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. That’s 300 products out of 30,000.

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/what-dietary-supplement-industry-does-not-want-you-know

[eShirl]

1. I can't tell whether the article is about all supplements or just vitamin pills.

It seems to switch back and forth.

[madokie]

4. I read it as both

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]

5. My doctor regularly recommends vitamin D to people with low levels.

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]

7. You do realize there are other reasons for taking dietary supplements, no?

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]

22. Your doctor said YOU shouldn't take any. That doesn't mean no one should.

Many people need to for various reasons.

[mindem]

2. Yawn

[djean111]

3. I wonder how much the processed crap we are sold contributes to disease.

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]

6. Classic food combination can deliver nutrients in bio-available form

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."

"We were very surprised to find rapid changes in the gut microbiota upon overfeeding individuals relative to their body size, meaning that the Firmicutes and the Bacteroidetes, which comprise about 97% of the phylae in the gut microbiota, changed rapidly after only 3 days. That was a new finding that hasn't been seen before," Dr. Jumpertz said. Higher calorie absorption was associated with an increase in the presence of Firmicutes, but when calorie absorption dipped, Bacteroidetes predominated (P = .04).

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]

9. Harder and harder to get "good food".

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]

11. I wonder if the anyone's done any studies on uptake on

folks using those soylent 'food replacement' mixes.

[Godhumor]

8. Vitamins... the most expensive urine you can buy n/t

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

10. I'm not a vitamin taker myself, but...

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]

13. I believe the naysayers know that very fucking well. That is just today's boggeyman. n/t

[bemildred]

16. Everything you eat and drink gets excreted, and a lot of it is ignored on the way through, so what?

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]

18. Yup.

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]

19. It was less than clear, or I would not have commented

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]

21. Many people can't get enough of specific vitamins/minerals naturally

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]

12. My oncologist prescribed Vit D to help prevent breast cancer recurrence.

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]

14. While taking simvasatin, my good cholesterol plunged...B vitamin was prescribed

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. One Centrum Silver each doy.

On doctor's recommendation.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. Vitamins don't cure cancer = all supplements are worthless is like saying aspirin is worthless

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]

20. David Agus is lying to sell his own books.

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.

[LisaLynne]

23. uh huh. nt