Your view: do you feel the need for food supplements?

Dieseltaylor

You have been tested to see if you require additional vitamin D, which is a sensible approach.

I do not understand the basis of the assumption that because some other countries recommend a different daily intake of certain vitamins that they are right and the UK recommendations are wrong.

If drinking soft drinks is discouraging us from drinking milk or decreasing our consumption of wholesome food, then perhaps that is the problem that we should address and not by taking vitamins to compensate.

My Vitamin D3 results are in

July 2012 49.3 nmol/L
August 2013 89.3 nmol/L

So taking 5000iu’s almost daily for a year has moved me to borderline inadequate to adequate. Now the interesting thing here is looking at this research below the geometric mean for the participants was 72.9 nmol/L in September without supplements but falling to what looks like
sub 30 nmol/L in February.
“Vitamin D status has a linear association with seasonal infections and lung function in British adults ”
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=8415192&jid=BJN&volumeId=106&issueId=09&aid=8415191&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0007114511001991#cjofig_fig1

My suspicion is that taking daily high iu levels of vitamin D supplement in the summer, even an English one , is perhaps redundant and that perhaps the point is to take them commencing the autumn until say March. Given the levels I take perhaps less than daily. However when we receive my wife’s results we will arrange different regimes and have further tests at the beginning of January.

Just to note that the British recommendations for the over 65’s does not mention seasonal effects whatsoever.
“people aged 65 years and over and people not exposed to much sun should also take a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms (0.01mg) of vitamin D “

Wife’s results in:
July 2012 46.8
Aug 2013 87.3

SO we will give it a rest until the end of sSeptember and I will go to one 5000IU per week and she will go to two per week and we will re-test the first week of January.

According to my 1950 copy of Law’s Grocer’s Manual the advent of margarine , invented 1869/70, was largely due to WW1 and consequent shortages. : )

I am in complete agreement about the downsides of processed foods. I also have doubts about the usability of Vitamins and additives added to these foods. I can make a bold claim of adding but what is really available at the end of the processing? And for some items they are cooked again.

The food in Maidstone Hospital, Kent is prepared in South Wales. One has to wonder. I looked at Wiltshire Foods to see some information on Vitamins not a whisker but at least they do break down the fats proteins etc.

This looks a very interesting read: Maximizing the Nutritional Value of Fruits & Vegetables
http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/234-780.pdf

This is old [1968] but very interesting looking at it from a growers angle:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0073e/T0073E00.htm#Contents

There are so many factors affecting the vitamin content of food that perhaps the only things we can be sure of are useful sources of vitamins and that storage and processing are generally detrimental. It is not all negative. We have a wider choice of fruit and veg available and more people avoid overcooking vegetables than in previous generations.

I stand to be corrected on the history of margarine, and your book was written before I was born. Butter was certainly rationed in WW2.

I am a fan of history, geography, and food [amongst other interests] hence the old books. It is also older than me. : )

This is a very fine study designed to show how Vitamin D has effects far beyond bone health and well worth reading to get a gist of what is going on. The measurement they use multiply by 2.5 to get the European equivalent of Vitamin D in blood in mol.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0058725

Dieseltaylor

The Introduction of this article starts: “Vitamin D deficiency defined as a serum concentration of 25- hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D],20 ng/ml is the largest pandemic in the world” and cite a couple of their own papers. I wonder if the authors understand the convention that writing for scientific journals requires an objective approach, unlike the tabloid newspapers, and that the term ‘pandemic’ is generally used to describe a widespread epidemic of an infectious disease. PLoS ONE is available to the general public as an open access journal, but is primarily intended for use by scientists, so perhaps the editor should try harder to maintain standards.

Maybe we should be supporting the use of testing to determine whether people do have vitamin deficiencies. I have just had a load of blood tests done in addition to the routine annual tests, but these did not include vitamin D or any other vitamins. In the meantime, I will enjoy the summer sunshine and the fact that the blood tests have revealed nothing to worry about, which is very reassuring. If I remember, I might have a test done in January or February. I need to take advice on whether this is something I should ask my GP about (on the basis that many adults do have vitamin D deficiency in the winter months) or if I should pay to have this done privately. If the latter, where can I trust to do the test. I would not consider any company that sells supplements, for obvious reasons.

Ah well writing for Americans not totally surprised at misuse though I am perplexed as to what a more correct alternative would be.

I use :
http://www.vitamindtest.org.uk/vitamindbackground.html

You should be aware that laboratories do not all report the same results as it is equipment dependent. Someone I know has had his tested at this and another lab with a 40% discrepancy and he feels this NHS facility under-reports. Fine by me as it may mean we are over 100nmol.
This would be good for the US Endocrine Society values.

Certainly get some testing done come Jan/Feb to see where you are in terms of sufficiency. I feel incredibly confident you will be insufficient or inadequate – score wise that is : )

Thanks. I had already found looked at the Cityassays site. Offering a pin-prick test is obviously convenient for DIY use, but I do wonder how the results compare with conventional tests using blood samples. It is ridiculous to report values to 3 significant figures when – as you say – the results tend to be rather variable.

When testing vitamin D and other analytes, we look for readings within a reference range that has been identified as normal or desirable, based on current knowledge at the time the range was established. Within that range, higher is not necessarily better. For example, when I test my blood glucose concentration, I’m rather glad to see that it is not at the upper end of the reference range. I will have a look at unbiased reviews but unless I see a convincing case that my vitamin D concentration should be >50 nM, I will let my body get on with the job rather than taking the largely unknown risk of swallowing supplements.

The obvious reason is that Australians have become wary about the sun, as a result of the high incidence of skin cancer. Various friends who have visited Australia have come back very pale, so I wonder if there has been a major change in lifestyle.

The problem with quoting Pauling is that he was wrong.

Just saying.

You don’t understand this science business do you?

It doesn’t matter how many Nobel prizes Pauling won, he still bears the burden of proof for any claim he makes.

Alexis Carrel (Physiology or Medicine, 1912) supported eugenics and N**i racial theories. Pierre Curie (Physics, 1903) was outspoken in support of a “psychic medium”. Ivar Giaever (Physics, 1973) is a climate denialist. Louis J. Ignarro (Physiology or Medicine, 1998) supports a pyramid scheme. Brian Josephson (Physics, 1973) believes in psychic and paranormal phenomena and cold fusion. Philipp Lenard (Physics, 1905) believed in the Deutsche Physik. Luc Montagnier (Physiology or Medicine, 2008) believes in homeopathy and promotes vaccine hysteria. Kary Mullis (Chemistry, 1993) is an AIDS denialist who also believes in alien abduction, astrology, conspiracy theories, cosmic raccoons, global warming denial and ozone denial but at least he has an excuse, as he admitted to being a heavy user of LSD back in the day. Linus Pauling (Chemistry, 1954, and Peace, 1962) believed in vitamin C quackery and orthomolecular medicine generally. Charles Richet (Physiology or Medicine, 1913) believe din ESP, the paranormal, and ghosts. William Shockley (Physics, 1956) was into eugenics. John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh (Physics, 1904) was a paranormalist. Nikolaas Tinbergen (Physiology or Medicine, 1973) is into crank theories of autism. James Watson (Physiology or Medicine, 1962) was a racist.

It’s common enough that there’s even a popular culture term for it: the Nobel disease.

Science, unlike SCAM, does not judge claims on the eminence of the claimant, but on the strength of the evidence. I’ll leave it at that, long experience shows that you and I have fundamentally different views of what evidence means; I prefer the normal scientific definition of course.

Guy,
if I do not understand this “science business” then you must have overlooked the science that I have reported on, and that which I have researched over the years.

That’s quite a list of scientists who were mistaken, but then we should consider that no one is infallible. However, some of them were quite right in their assertions, and esp’ Linus Pauling who you say believed in “Vitamin C quackery” and “Orthomolecular Medicine quackery” generally.
Re’ Orthomolecular “quackery” as you call it means you have ignored the science on Vitamin C that he advocated, so here is a short list of a much longer one on its science and health benefits….

The National Library of Medicine, in fact, contains thousands of studies demonstrating vitamin C’s ability to significantly improve health, and treat disease successfully.

A study published in 2008 showed that higher plasma vitamin C levels are associated with a significantly reduced risk of stroke. Scientists from the clinical gerontology unit at Addenbrooke’s University Hospital in Cambridge, UK, tracked 20,649 men and women aged 40 to 79 years, between 1993 and 1997. The group was followed through March 2005. Individuals who had the highest vitamin C levels showed a 42% reduction in stroke risk! If you compare this with Plavix’s 8.7 – 9.4% risk reduction, and the profound side effects drugs like these generate, one begins to understand why the media projection of “vitamins are toxic” propaganda serves only the interests of the drug companies……..
Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Jan ;87(1):64-9. PMID: 18175738

Here’s quite a few more studies to be getting on with…………..
http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=9

“Modern science is now eagerly embracing vitamin C’s enormous potential as an antioxidant capable of preventing and, in some cases, reversing a host of human ills. Helping to maximize the beneficial effects of exercise while minimizing the impact of destructive toxins like tobacco smoke, vitamin C also acts at the most fundamental levels to prevent endothelial changes that lead to atherosclerosis, while also blocking harmful DNA degradation that triggers malignant change and sets the stage for cancer. And as scientists learn still more about the vital role of oxidative damage in diseases ranging from asthma to stomach ailments, vitamin C’s importance is growing literally by the day. There is no doubt that future research will uncover even more astonishing findings on the health benefits of vitamin C.”…………………………………..
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2008/apr2008_Newly-Discovered-Benefits-Of-Vitamin-C_01.htm

Chris, I have not overlooked “the science that you have reported on”, I have in fact repeatedly pointed out to you where you are going wrong in quoting this science.

1. You quote the science as cherry-picked by sites whose agenda you support.

2. You quote cherry-picked studies against reviews that already encompass those views but form very different conclusions based on the cumulative weight of evidence.

3. You cite things that absolutely are not science, alongside fringe science and the occasional bit of mainstream science, and don’t appear to be able to tell the difference.

You’ll know you’re getting it right when your reviews lead you to conclude that homeopathy and colloidal silver are quack remedies, and vitamin megadoses are not indicated unless you’re running marathons in the Arctic. Because that’s what independent, dispassionate reviews conclude.

Astonishingly* all those sources seem to be committed to promoting the supplement industry. Unlike the independent research cited by Which?.

* No, not really.

It is better to focus on eating a good diet than take supplements to compensate for a poor diet.

Look at the shelves of supplements in any supermarket and you will have some idea of how the British public is being persuaded to spend a fortune on pills they don’t need.

Chrisb mentioned the Council for Responsible Nutrition. It is a US organisation with a vested interest. According to their website, ‘The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) is the UK trade association representing the leading manufacturers and suppliers of food supplements and their ingredients’. In this country we have the Natural Hydration Council, a trade association promoting sales of bottled water, another product that we don’t need. NHC has even posted on Which? Conversation.

Correct. And let’s not forget that much of “big herba” is just “big pharma”. The companies manufacturing the “natural” dose of vitamin C recommended by Pauling (the equivalent of eating 25-30 oranges a day, which of course everybody has done throughout human history) are often the same companies who turn out drugs.

The most bizarre thing about the “health freedom” lobby, to my view, is the fact that they seem to be in denial that they are a lobbying organisation for a big, profitable and highly industrialised business.

I don’t know, maybe people prefer the unregulated supplements made by non-industrial makers instead. I don’t, since there’s god evidence that these are even more variable and even more heavily contaminated, but whatever.

I found a picture of the machinery used to make “natural” supplements.

Wavechange,
yes I have mentioned the Council For Responsible Nutrition which is the leading trade association representing dietary supplement manufacturers and ingredient suppliers, but you are implying that they are biased in their reporting of the science behind the consumption of nutritional supplements.

The same could be said for pharmaceutical companies in promoting drugs and other organisations or trade associations who represent their own members.

The science that CRN publish on nutrition and its benefits is hardly likely to be published by pharmaceutical companies, so this role is left to them. Whether their findings are biased or not depends on the science that they publish for scrutiny by anyone, so any bias in favor of nutrition could be discovered in this way.

Bear in mind that the science on nutritional supplements is also published in reputable journals such as JAMA and so on, so publication could be censored or edited at source if found to be incorrect.

It is certainly advisable to eat a good diet Wavechange, but you have missed the point entirely here: food grown today is far less nutritious than it has been in decades past, and I allude here to Senate Document No. 264, of 1936, where minerals in the soil were severely deficient at that time. Nothing has been done since to rectify this crisis.

Nutrient-depleted soils produce nutrient-depleted crops, and therefore nutrient-deficient people, leaving the way open for the development of disease.
These are verbatim and unabridged extracts from the 74th Congress 2nd Session……
http://www.colloidal-min.com/gvt.htm

Health consequences of Global mineral deficiencies………………….

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18201330
http://www.life-enthusiast.com/symptoms-of-mineral-deficiencies-a-2953.html
http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/82/3/News.pdf
http://www.publichealthreviews.eu/show/f/28

So what is the solution to a nutrient-depleted diet and regardless of how good that diet may be?: nutritional supplements.

Guy,
your comment…………

“The companies manufacturing the “natural” dose of vitamin C recommended by Pauling (the equivalent of eating 25-30 oranges a day,”……………..

you may be surprised to hear that to obtain the same nutritional content of eating one orange grown a decade ago, you would have to eat 8 oranges today, so at least you are on the right track; and the two scientists who have verified Paulings work with Ascorbate (Vitamin C to the uninitiated) are Dr Steve Hickey (a Medical Biophysicist at Manchester University) and Dr Hillary Roberts PhD who co-wrote: “Ascorbate: The Science of Vitamin C”, which contains a wealth of unbiased science regarding the Orthomolecular use of the same.

Your interpretation and opinion as to the aims and intentions of the health-freedom lobby Guy, couldn’t be further from the truth, and based on little except the aforementioned. It is in fact about the rights of individuals to make their own choices in healthcare, and esp’ from the monopoly of mainstream medicine; these rights are gradually being eroded by corporations who DO have a “vested interest” in maintaining the status quo of exclusive drug-therapy.

You have yet to answer my post on another WHICH forum regarding the book and comments of Dr Peter C Gøtzsche, head of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, and a co-founder of evidence-based medicine’s standard-bearer, the Cochrane Collaboration, who has described the pharmaceutical industry as akin to the mafia, in his recent book: “Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare”.

In the opening pages he writes: “In the United States and Europe, drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.”

If this is what you are defending, then really you do not have a leg to stand on.

Nice picture Guy of the machinery used to make “natural” supplements, but this is only part of the “picture”, so for example, manufactured Ascorbate or Vitamin C is chemically identical to that found in Nature.

In addition, still taking ascorbate as an example, most all animals manufacture their own which was lost in the eons of time to humans.

The amount manufactured by animals is approximately proportional to their body weight, and, converted to the weight of a human being, ranges from about 20.00 to 20,000 milligrams per day. Irwin Stone concluded that human beings with an average diet are accordingly all suffering from hypoascorbemia, a deficiency of ascorbate in the blood and tissues.

Hickey and Roberts set out to prove that Pauling was a quack regarding Vitamin C but came to this conclusion instead………………………
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/12154.php

Chris, why do you keep citing websites that exist to advocate crank and alternative ideas, as if that somehow validates them?

Chris, the unreliability of your sources has been shown many, many times.

A reliable source on supplements looks like this: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2011/05May/Pages/supplements-special-report.aspx

You’ll notice that the don’t profit from selling them, but would profit (in reduced budgets) by recommending routine supplementation if it actually worked.

A reliable source on supplements Guy does not derive from the conservative NHS.

These for example would be far more accurate:

How Dietary Supplements Reduce Health Care Costs…………………

“New research from the Lewin Group has shown that spending pennies a day on a few key nutritional supplements can dramatically reduce sickness and chronic disease — and greatly decrease healthcare expenditures as a result”.
“The Lewin Group looked only at rigorous scientific studies that documented the benefits of nutritional supplements. They used the Congressional Budget Office’s accounting methods to determine the economic impact of supplements. And they kept their analysis specifically to Medicare patients and women of childbearing age”.

(i) The Lewin Group. (2006). An evidence-based study of the role of dietary supplements in helping seniors maintain their independence. Prepared for: The Dietary Supplement Education Alliance.

(ii) Fairfield K.M., and R.H. Fletcher. (2002). Vitamins for chronic disease prevention in adults: Scientific review. Journal of the American Medical Association. 287:3116-3126.

(iii) Willett W.C., and M.J. Stampfer. (2002). What vitamins should I be taking doctor? New England Journal of Medicine. 345 (24):1914-1916.

http://drhyman.com/blog/2011/04/08/how-dietary-supplements-reduce-health-care-costs/

http://knowledgeofhealth.com/patients-can-save-on-out-of-pocket-costs-by-taking-dietary-supplements-in-lieu-of-prescription-drugs/

Here is a suggestion, Chrisb. Rather than trying to push us to swallow supplements, why not promote testing to see if there is a need?

Perhaps we should also focus on the UK situation, rather than what is happening in the US.

Sorry – my suggestion promoting testing the need for supplements was not intended as a reply to your comment to Guy.

Wavechange,
well believe it or not I am not trying to push anyone into swallowing supplements, as all I am pointing out is the need for optimum nutrition which we used to be able to receive from our diets, but are unable to today; this is because of a variety of reasons as I have mentioned previously, not least of which are the state of our soils.

Other reasons for inadequate nutrition would include consuming processed foods which lack nutrition, and have more or less become a staple of our diets in the West.

Testing is a good way forward I agree with you, but many current parameters for testing, fall woefully short of the ideal for optimum health and freedom from disease. I refer here to Vitamin D levels as an example, or even Vitamin C RDI’s which are largely outdated by orthodoxy.

Supplementation should not really be necessary, but in the real World a pragmatic approach would act as a prophylactic against disease, and allow us to achieve an optimum state of health with boundless energy at any age.

Chris: Your definition of “optimum” is drawn from cranks. The definition of optimum as promoted by those who are (unlike most cranks) medically qualified to comment, is that most people do not need supplements. Hence the article.

Let us agree then that testing is a good idea. Let us agree on the importance of a good diet. Perhaps we could agree that home-made food using locally produced ingredients is a good option, and something that should be promoted.

If there is sufficient evidence that an RDI is too low (or too high) it will be changed.

Despite the problems that you mention and the perils of pharmaceuticals you have mentioned on many occasions, life expectancy in Britain is rising. The Chancellor is likely to announce that younger people will have to wait longer for their pensions. If my GP recommends that I take supplements I will do so, but – as with taking pharmaceuticals – she will need to convince me of the need.

Guy,
my definition of “optimum nutrition” is drawn from the science which you have yet again ignored.

Since when did your average medically qualified personnel have any or much knowledge of nutrition?
This is old ground, so you had better re-read my posts to re-educate yourself on this topic.

Chrisb – You recently told us that you used to be a driving instructor and made some points that are reasonable and might have been made by any driving instructor.

As someone who has spent his working life in scientific research, training others in experimental design and interpretation of data, writing papers and reviews, and reviewing papers I have some idea of scientific method. I have read many of your posts and it is fairly evident that you have not worked in a scientific discipline or received scientific training. You would take exception to anyone who claimed that mum and dad could be as good at teaching their child to drive as a trained driving instructor. I take exception to being told to go and read articles that have been selected to ‘prove’ a particular point. As a scientist, albeit retired, I want to see all the evidence.

Wavechange,
I used to be a “driving examiner” employed by the DSA and not a “driving instructor”. Driving examiners are considered to be experts in driving behaviour.

No scientific training? I hold a BSc in one of the sciences, so I do have scientific training, and my articles are posted as accumulated evidence supporting my views shared by many.

wavechange – There is testing on vitamin supplements and depending on the vitamin and the quality of studies it is a minefield. I only look at Vitamn D and the work on it.

I appreciate your scientific background but I also realise that scientists are not necessarily any better at quantifying risks/benefits against how much information is really required to make a decision. I personally would love 100% proof on everything but in the real world that is a very rare beast.

Sometime ago you asked why my opinion of the NHS on Vitamin D supplementation seemed less important than that of the US and Canadian government health services. I could say it is just the odds, or more likely that they throw more money at the investigations, or the NA lifestyle choices seem to presage ours by the odd decade.

More probably the NHS is cautious as it does not want to take on more costs. Neither of my in-laws who are in their 70’s have been tested for Vitamin D sufficiency though there is a NHS recommendation …….

However ultimately I think we are all in agreement that you are what you eat – more prosaically we are a chemical factory with inputs and outputs of life and waste products. The human body is flexible to a degree and can work on inferior products however perhaps behaviours and some illnesses become more apparent with diet :

“Probiotic Therapy Alleviates Autism-Like Behaviors in Mice”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131205141900.htm

This taken into account with the other work on gut flora, makes one think perhaps the input side has a bigger effect on humans than Western medicine has acknowledged to date.

Dieseltaylor

As I have said before, I hope that the recommended daily intake of vitamin D will be reviewed. Because of the fact that exposure to the sun and diet both have a contribution, it is a rather special case. Rather than spending time outdoors, many of us are staying in our comfortable homes for longer than is good for us and many are taking sensible precautions to avoid skin cancer.

What concerns me is when people cherry pick information that suits their argument, disregarding the majority view, the classical example being those who promote homeopathy.

I do not discount that modifying the gut flora could be useful. Intact bacteria excrete many chemicals and if digested in the gut, many more will be released. During my PhD and postdoc work I did some analytical work, albeit not on gut bacteria. Of course we need to see other studies and to establish what effects probiotic therapy would have on gut function.

I am still planning to have a vitamin D test in February, as I mentioned some time ago. It it indicates that I have a deficiency, I will discuss this with my GP and ask to be tested periodically in future.

Some will say that taking supplements cannot do any harm, and that if a little of something is good, a lot may be better. It is fairly well known that overfilling a car engine with oil can cause serious problems. At the present time I am not sure that we know if taking a handful of supplements will cause problems in the long term. What I fear most of all is acceptance of a mediocre diet because taking supplements will compensate for this, when what we need is a good diet and a healthy lifestyle.

It’s a nice sunny day and I’m off to boost my vitamin D level. 🙂

Wavechange,
yes I also hope that RDI’s of Vitamin D are reviewed to match the current science which the NHS website has overlooked; bearing in mind that the current RDI’s for Vitamin D are 800ius for men and 600ius for women. So when direct UVB rays are exposed to the skin, this produces up to 20,000ius of D3 in one half-hour of exposure.
We also know that the body will not allow overdosing of Vitamin D from sunlight and produces this on a “need” basis, so when the NHS recommends the above RDI’s, this falls woefully short of what the body actually needs when we are unable to avail ourselves of the benefits of the Sun. The advice of Dermatologists over the last couple of decades in avoiding all sunlight exposure, for the fear of skin cancer, reveals that they have much to answer for.

I am also not in favor of cherry-picking information that suits any particular argument either, but if you are referring to my own sources, these are usually supported by a wide consensus within the nutritional sciences, and in particular with Prof’ Michael Holick, Dr Cedric Garland and Prof’ Veith and others, who all came to the same conclusions, independently of each other regarding Vitamin D intake in the prevention of disease and cancer in particular.

Prof’ Veith has stated: “In summer, sunbathing for 10 minutes on your front and 10 minutes on your back makes about 10,000 units of vitamin D. This is the equivalent of 100 glasses of milk or 25 vitamin pills – and enough for most people to produce the desired 75 nmol/L of vitamin D in their blood. We require – and are designed to survive – a certain amount of sunshine. People just need to remember to cover up before they burn”.

I am pleased to learn that you are having your Vitamin D levels checked in February, but make sure it is the correct test 25(OH)D, and that blood readings should ideally be 50ngml or even slightly higher in acting as a prophylactic.

You may be surprised to learn that I am not in favor of taking all and just any supplements, but where there is a specific need (as with Vitamin D) and other nutrients not obtainable from even the best of diets, then I am in favor.

What I am in favor of is the use of “Nutraceuticals” which in many a case can replace pharmaceuticals with far less if any harm, and do not have the toxicity and harm/dangers associated with them.

There is little to be concerned about with “overfilling the car engine” as Vitamin C (for example) taken to excess, results in what is known as the “bowel-tolerance-level” with no harm; in fact this is how we perceive an actual bodily need until the BTL is reached, and this can take up to 40,000mg or more per day, and even more than this when taken therapeutically during illness.

It can be prudent to have an extra health-insurance-policy of supplementing a good diet with a good multivitamin/mineral to make up any shortfall from a Western diet and the dominance of processed foods.

chrisb – I apologise for referring to you as a former driving instructor. The comments you did make were not radically different to what the majority of driving examiners or driving instructors might make, whereas your views on nutrition are radically different to those that are generally accepted.

On various occasions you have been accused of cherry picking information. You may not be, but the effect is the same if your sources have already done the cherry pickling. I would not expect any science graduate to be able to critically evaluate information unless they had worked in a research environment. Many of the websites you have provided links for are highly biased and perhaps the only use is to illustrate the extent of the bias in information presented to the public.

However hard you try, I don’t think you will bring about a radical change in nutrition because we need to review all the available information, taking into account the quality of studies and confidence in the data and its interpretation. Health recommendations usually evolve based on mainstream understanding.

I saw your username mentioned in another Conversation today and thought it would be good to invite you to join in on some of the other topics, since you are very regular contributor if only in a narrow area. I am sure that many of us would support your views on processed food. Have a good Christmas.

Thank you Matthew.
It has been a lone isolated battle here until you posted, so your comments are very welcome.

Wavechange is the usual epitomy of impartiality and diplomacy, and I admire him for that, unlike one or two others here who are unable to accept the evidence or the science that I have illustrated.

I don’t think for one moment that any of my posts would make the grade of “comment of the week” as this may upset the status quo as to how things are accepted and measured generally.

Citing Patrick Holford? You fail, big time.

Guy,
“citing Patrick Holford is a “fail, big time” only in your mistaken opinion, and nothing to do with the facts.
Please try and get your facts right before making outlandish and incorrect comments.
Thank you.

So because someone who has an extreme position advocating something (which, incidentally, he sells) says there is no toxic dose, so we should believe him an not the scientific consensus? Sorry, that’s not how it works.

Guy,
The study has already been debunked…………..

I looked at the study. They looked at the effect of vitamins on cognitive functioning in adult men 65 years old + and another part of the study looked at people ALREADY WITH heart issues and saw no improvement in either one of these categories. Ummm, why didn’t they look at the worst possible groups of people. That is hilarious. In order to see the effects that vitamins have on a person’s health you would have to have two people with the exact same genetic make up and health issues, etc. and give one vitamins and one not and follow them over the course of their life. This would be pretty close to impossible, not to mention unethical. For those who want to believe studies like this, keep in mind, traditional medicine DOES NOT look for cures or ways to prevent illness, they only treat the symptoms.

The first study cited was a review of 27 studies, but only 3 were on multivitamins; the rest were on singular nutrients. Second paper was on physicians – probably the best-nourished demographic in America. And in America, only about an estimated 5% of the population gets a nutritionally satisfactory diet, meaning there is much room for multivitamins to fill in nutritional gaps. In the third paper, the “nonadherence rate” was more than 50%! The authors themselves said any “interpretation is very difficult.” Also of note in this commentary, when a vitamin study was found to be successful (hint: there are many), it is characterized as an “enormous controversy.” The bias is clear: The mainstream American medical establishment wants people to be unhealthy so they can dispense profitable pharmaceuticals to treat people once they are sick, and they are not interested in keeping them well in the first place. As the Chinese proverb goes, “The superior doctor prevents sickness; the mediocre doctor attends to impending sickness; the inferior doctor treats actual sickness.”

A Murdoch paper for a balanced view ….. : )

Have they printed a link to the research you can share?

I add the adjoining Times teaser articles they have carried. Its incredibly interesting that the top two articles I have copied are actually about different things which shows how stupid the media is in how it presents studies.

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Vitamin D from sun may improve pregnancy chances
Scientists believe that vitamin D provided by the Sun might help embryos to establish themselves in the womb
Published at October 25 2012
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Millions of people are vitamin D deficient
A woman reads a book in the sunshine in Victoria Tower Gardens on September 2, 2011 in London, England
Almost every cell in the body has receptors for D and we now realise that it does far more than maintain the…
Published at April 24 2012
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There is a long history of poor reporting of science in the press, but different articles can support different views, giving a very crude balance. Ignore the popular press and look at articles in New Scientist, Scientific American and other publications that aim to provide the general public with good quality information in a comprehensible format.

Yes there is a link dieseltaylor and referenced at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, but am not able to locate it at the moment even from my browser history.
I shall keep on searching.

A balanced diet and moderate exercise will benefit almost everybody (except the vitamin peddlers, and I don’t care about them).

Further to the mention of Vitamin D.

Prof Norman Ratcliffe, from Swansea University, recently said that a record number of people in the UK are suffering with a vitamin D deficiency. Adequate levels of the sunshine vitamin are necessary to prevent common cancers, heart and autoimmune diseases, rickets, osteomalacia (bone pain and muscle weakness), diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and depression.

The truth is, vitamin D deficiency is slowly becoming a ‘major public health concern’ and some experts claim that Britain is heading back to the 1920s — a time when large numbers of children suffered bone pain and bowed legs from the effects of rickets.

Professor Nicholas Clarke, consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Southampton General Hospital, said that all children at the hospital with musculoskeletal pain have their vitamin D levels tested and most of them are deficient. Children as young as two are being diagnosed with full-blown rickets with the classic Victorian symptoms of bowed legs that may require surgery.

According to Prof Clarke, pregnant women are not routinely informed that they should be taking vitamin D, and vitamins for children are not being promoted at all. Much as the vitamin is present in some foods, most of it is synthesized by our bodies when exposed to sunlight.

Alternative health expert, Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, recommends cod liver oil as a good source for vitamin D. It packs in 1,200 to 1,500 IU per tablespoon. When supplementing with vitamin D, Dr. Wright recommends 5,000 IU daily if you are an adult and 2,000 to 3,000 IU for children.

However, after saying that, it is important that anyone should work with a doctor skilled in natural medicine to find your body’s optimal level of vitamin D and remember to take extra vitamin E if you supplement with fish oils, as it will help keep them from oxidizing too rapidly in your body.

Guy,
Just as a matter of interest I would like to ask if you have had you vitamin D levels checked and whether they are insufficient or optimal?

If insufficient, and in the absence of sunlight here in the Winter, I wonder how you think you could solve this issue unless you take vitamin D supplements.?

It is well worth trying to avoid viral infections such colds and flu, since the latter can very serious.

My approach is to avoid the virus by keeping away from people with colds and hygienic measures such as hand washing because the virus can be transmitted by contact. The last time I had an infection was during the swine flu epidemic a few years ago.

I think the evidence that older people might need vitamin D supplementation is reasonably sound. The evidence that everybody needs it, is absent, as is the evidence that almost anybody needs the massive levels promoted by extreme advocates.

What’s interesting is to compare the modest and cautious claims of the carefully designed studies, with the inflated claims of the unreliable studies preferred by the more extreme advocates.

Skepticism is the default i the scientific method. It’s the correct approach. Applying skepticism leads you to request a blood test to check for vitamin D levels, ignore virtually every claim around vitamin C, and so on. The only advantage of supplements is that they are probably less harmful for those who are determined to medicalise normality than other classes of drugs.

Much better to eat a balanced diet, take moderate exercise, and stop worrying unless you actually have symptoms. And of course never believe any claim made by a salesman, without independent corroboration. I analysed some of the criticisms of the ASA’s regulation of supplement claims.

Guy,
indeed there is a perceived need for Vitamin D supplementation in the elderly, but we all need the vitamin, so lack of our main source from sunlight exposure (esp’ in the Winter) means that it is not only the elderly who have a need.

There is nothing remotely extreme in supplementing with Vitamin D of 5000ius to 8000ius per day in the Wintertime in the absence of sunlight, when in the Summer months, when we are lucky enough to receive exposure, sunlight will produce up to 20,000ius of Vitamin D within the skin, and within half an hour of mostly full body sunlight exposure.
According to your own reasoning this makes the Sun an “extremist”, so well done on that score.

BTW, Vitamin D is not a drug but a hormone precursor found in Nature essential for bodily health..

I agree that it is a wise choice to eat a “balanced” diet (plant-based) and take regular exercise as well, but you should have realized by now that our crops are nutrient-deficient, and therefore some supplementation (although not the ideal) is a prudent way of making good this shortfall.

In addition the website WDDTYDTY is such a scam it isn’t worth reading the nonsense it contains.

Tyrosine is an amino acid found in proteins. It can be made from phenylalanine, another amino acid present in proteins. Why take supplements that could cause problems unless there is evidence of deficiency? I suggest you read the articles provided by Guy rather than making provocative comments. 🙂

Sooner or later, many untrained people could be victims of their self-medication.

The Annals article has already been debunked so that should now be put to bed.

If thyroid supplements are harmful, this should be weighed against the harm of pharmaceuticals, where the latter have far more evidence of harm. If this suits your agenda, which it seems to, then that is good old fashioned bias that fits in with your argument quite well.

Further to the article of case closed on multivitamins and supplements generally………

Commentary by Mark McCarty

(OMNS Dec 21, 2013) “Centrum Silver Adults 50+” was the low-dose multivitamin tested in a much-trumpeted recent study that “proved that supplements don’t work.” Here is the manufacturer’s webpage for this paragon of applied nutritional science: http://www.centrum.com/centrum-silver-adults-50-plus#tablets However, to actually see in detail what’s in the product, you have to click the tiny “Product Labeling” link directly under the package illustration . . . and then scroll all the way down to the fine print in the “Ingredients” box.

But it is worth the effort. In addition to three artificial colors, note the whopping big doses (this is satire, now) of protective nutrients such as:

Vitamin D – 500 IU (Bet they thought they were going way out on a limb, adding that great extra 100 IU!)

Vitamin E – 50 IU (All provided by cutting edge, synthetic dl-alpha-tocopheryl acetate)

Magnesium – 50 mg (Wow, one-eighth of the RDA, in the ever-so-soluble oxide form!)

Zinc – 11 mg (Cleverly well below the elevated range shown to exert any “dangerous antioxidant activity” by inducing metallothionein [1])

Calcium – 220 mg (Note the 4.4 to 1 ratio of calcium to magnesium; way too high, and that is not a satirical comment)

Lutein – 250 mcg (Macular degeneration is now a thing of the past!)

Evidently, the failure of this nutritional powerhouse to prevent dementia can only mean that all supplementation is inherently worthless.

Granted this supplement did reduce cancer incidence by 8%, but who can remember back that far?

Of course, you would think that even modest, conservative doses of micronutrients might provide some benefit to the many mentally-challenged people whose baseline diets are overloaded with empty calories. So to give the supplement the very best chance to demonstrate efficacy, the researchers chose a population of research subjects most likely to be nutritionally deficient: American physicians!

Now that we have gotten all this supplements nonsense out of our systems, we can all go to our doctors to get prescriptions for the many drugs proven to prevent dementia (of which there are none).

But as for vitamins, thank heavens our ever-vigilant media have set us straight again! What would we do without them?

(Mark McCarty is a nutritionist and Research Director at the non-profit organization Catalytic Longevity. He is also President of NutriGuard Research, and a consultant to several medical clinics.)

Notes:

1. In regard to zinc – are you aware of this result from the AREDS1 study?: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15136320 The 27% reduction in total mortality observed in those getting 80 mg zinc daily has been largely ignored – even though it was a robust finding in a rather massive controlled study – presumably because few people understand it. It likely represents a protective effect of metallothionein induction, which is dose-dependent above the usual dietary range of zinc (and is likely of minimal significance with modest zinc intakes). A key target of metallothionein is cadmium, which is emerging as a major mediator of multiple risks, even in people without industrial exposure published here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22959313

For further reading:

Are Antioxidants Bad for Us? A Response to Dr. Paul Offit http://catalyticlongevity.org/prepub_archive/Are%20Antioxidants%20Bad%20for%20Us.pdf

Excellent analysis of the flawed research used to attack multivitamin supplements: http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/Flawed-Research-Used-to-Attack-Multivitamin-Supplements.htm

Gossard B, Schmid K, Huber L, Joyal SV. Flawed research used to attack multivitamin supplements. http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/Flawed-Research-Used-to-Attack-Multivitamin-Supplements.htm

Additional humorous commentary on vitamin-bashing:

Multivitamins dangerous? Latest leak from the World Headquarters of Pharmaceutical Politicians, Educators and Reporters: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n15.shtml

How to destroy confidence in vitamins when you do not have the facts: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n02.shtml

Confidential Memorandum from the World Headquarters of Pharmaceutical Politicians, Educators and Reporters: scroll down at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v08n11.shtml

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Guys links refer to OverTheCounter drugs.

I think you are more likely to be the victim of a recommendation that is authoritatively put forward by your doctor. Look up iatrogenic deaths.