3 ms·

I see research on essential vitamins all the time on HN. It really makes you think. There's cohorts who will debunk the studies based on methodology or glaring

I see research on essential vitamins all the time on HN. It really makes you think. There's cohorts who will debunk the studies based on methodology or glaring flaws. There's cohorts who will provide anecdotal evidence in support. There's even cohorts who will bring up a history lesson/"conspiracy" we all forgot about. It really makes you wonder about essential vitamins though. There's so many of these types of studies that continue to show benefits of getting the right amount of vitamin D, but there's equally enough noise to tell you that you don't need it. But for countries like America, experts continue to weigh in that we don't get enough essential vitamins and minerals through our diets, so wouldn't it just be common sense that many people are deficient and therefore should supplement? Wasn't this the entire controversy of Pauling for example when he pushed Vitamin C? That the RDA amounts are not enough and should be highly personalized? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK56068/table/summarytables.t2/?report=objectonly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK56068/table/summarytab... (Recommendations) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-020-0558-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-020-0558-y (Deficiency Worldwide)

oarfish 3y ago
One issue with supplementation is the food matrix effect - Yes, Vitamin deficiencies are associated with all kinds of badness, but just supplementing this one nutrient doesn't address the underlying problem and often doesn't improve clinical outcomes. Rather, the deficiency is an indicator of poor health satus and to be fixed by adjusting the dietary pattern. That's the thing with a lot of vitamin d and c associations anyway.
mandmandam 3y ago
I think it's absolutely bonkers - it really blows me away - that we have such debate on the effects of single molecules, studied for untold millions of human hours. And yet many people think we can improve on nature; tinkering and toying with vastly more complex machinery and life, that we barely understand. We are still discovering entire structures in the human body, ffs, yet are seemingly happy to allow vast monocultures of corporate and for-profit GM crops; 'trusting the science'. The lies are as thin as our topsoil's gonna be soon. I love the idea of scientific progress, and understanding things, but this attitute of 'trust the men in white coats with everything even though we don't understand Vitamin C or D all that well' is truly mind-boggling. *: I assume the people down-voting this think I'm talking smack on science - read again. I'm talking about scientism, and hubris, and appeals to authority. Which if you were paying any attention whatsoever the last 3 years you ought to know are big problems right now.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > we have such debate on the effects of single molecules Most complex systems have simple limiters, almost by definition of the latter. You don’t need to solve fluid dynamics and combustion physics to understand that more air through a carburettor causes an internal combustion engine to run faster.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    But we don't understand the effect of Vitamin C, or D. Your analogy is deeply flawed. We understand engines well enough, but we don't truly understand the machinery of even a single cell of our body. We have broad strokes - take C for a cold. Take D in winter. But there are trained scientists who disagree with even these statements! We have people making a mockery of Nobel Prize winners over it! Where have you ever seen such debate about combustion engines.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > we don't understand the effect of Vitamin C, or D Sure. But we know they are important. Despite being “single molecules.” > We have broad strokes - take C for a cold. Take D in winter. But there are trained scientists who disagree with even these statements! Because they appear unsubstantiated. You’re describing treatments. That’s a different ball game. > We have people making a mockery of Nobel Prize winners over it Pauling did not win his Nobel for vitamin C.
      - mandmandam 3y ago
        > Sure. But we know they are important. Despite being “single molecules.” The point is that there's huge debate on how they work, why they work, whether they work for this and that, etc, despite them being about as tiny and simple in form as you could ask for. And as far as I know no one has ever claimed that Vitamin C and D are not single molecules, so I've no idea why you put that in quotes. It's relevant that they're not, for example, the mixture of hundreds or even thousands of synergistic and antagonistic compounds, in various quantities, found in every single plant. > Because they appear unsubstantiated. You’re describing treatments. That’s a different ball game. Taking C for a cold, or D in winter, is NOT unsubstantiated - there are studies that show effect, and studies that show no effect. It's debated. That's exactly my point, that even these simple and tiny molecules inspire massive confusion and debate. It's in no way like an engine. The body and how it processes things like vitamins is so, so much more complex. You can say this same thing about thousands of molecules and simple substances, which the scientismic community stands behind despite huge debate - SSRIs, anti-psychotics, glyphosate, etc. We don't understand them, and vested interests in white coats want us to believe otherwise. Remember tobacco being promoted by doctors? It wasn't that long ago. The point, again, is this: that if we can have so much uncertainty about such tiny and simple things, why would we believe it's safe to muck about with our food supply (GMO monocultures), or to declare glyphosate safe and cover the planet with it, or claim that mRNA vaccines are utterly harmless (despite immediate evidence to the contrary, as now proven beyond doubt). Remember CFCs, PFAS, thalidomide? These things are fundamentally different from your example of a simple combustion engine. They're complex on a level far beyond our current ability to comprehend. Even if we think we know what's going on, we really, really don't. We have hints, we have hunches, we have incomplete models with giant and dangerous holes in.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Two points: > experts continue to weigh in that we don't get enough essential vitamins and minerals through our diets First, would be better to list some specifics rather than "experts say". But even if so, saying that people don't get enough of some micronutrient X from food, it doesn't necessarily follow that supplementation with pills will lead to better health (except in some specific and extreme circumstances that rarely affect people these days, e.g. scurvy). Second, this was not the entire controversy around Pauling's vitamin C fantasy. His recommended doses were orders of magnitude larger than recommended amounts - it wasn't just about being "more personalized". Nevermind that Pauling's vitamin C theories have been thoroughly disproven.
- thenerdhead 3y ago
  1. No, because the specifics change every week. One week you're deficient in fiber, the next Vitamin D. Look to the mainstream news or online articles for this ridiculousness. 2. Maybe consider looking at modern research. https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-central/blog/2020/yun-cantley-vitamin-c https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-cent... > Nevermind that Pauling's vitamin C theories have been thoroughly disproven. Nothing in science is proven. Only re-evaluated.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    The funny thing about the link that you give is that the hypothesis around intravenous Vitamin C is literally the exact opposite around Pauling's beliefs of oral vitamin C. That is, taken intravenously, Vitamin C generates free radicals like hydrogen peroxide that are particularly dangerous to cancer cells. This is the exact opposite of oral administration of Vitamin V where it acts as an antioxidant.
    - thenerdhead 3y ago
      Maybe read his book so you can hear what he has to say about it rather than your interpretation of it. Anyway, the article I linked summarizes it fine too: > So why did the Pauling and Mayo Clinic trials have different results? There are at least two crucial differences. First, the Mayo Clinic trials abruptly stopped the ascorbate administration, switching to traditional chemotherapy, when the patient developed signs of tumor progression. Thus, the overall median time of vitamin C treatment under the Mayo Clinic trials was only 2.5 months, while the Pauling and Cameron trials treated patients for the duration of the entire study period or as long as 12 years. Secondly, the Mayo Clinic trials administered 10 g of daily ascorbate to patients only orally, while the Cameron and Pauling trials administered their vitamin C both orally and intravenously. This difference in the two dosage routes proved highly consequential.

oarfish 3y ago

One issue with supplementation is the food matrix effect - Yes, Vitamin deficiencies are associated with all kinds of badness, but just supplementing this one nutrient doesn't address the underlying problem and often doesn't improve clinical outcomes. Rather, the deficiency is an indicator of poor health satus and to be fixed by adjusting the dietary pattern. That's the thing with a lot of vitamin d and c associations anyway.

mandmandam 3y ago

I think it's absolutely bonkers - it really blows me away - that we have such debate on the effects of single molecules, studied for untold millions of human hours. And yet many people think we can improve on nature; tinkering and toying with vastly more complex machinery and life, that we barely understand. We are still discovering entire structures in the human body, ffs, yet are seemingly happy to allow vast monocultures of corporate and for-profit GM crops; 'trusting the science'. The lies are as thin as our topsoil's gonna be soon. I love the idea of scientific progress, and understanding things, but this attitute of 'trust the men in white coats with everything even though we don't understand Vitamin C or D all that well' is truly mind-boggling. *: I assume the people down-voting this think I'm talking smack on science - read again. I'm talking about scientism, and hubris, and appeals to authority. Which if you were paying any attention whatsoever the last 3 years you ought to know are big problems right now.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> we have such debate on the effects of single molecules Most complex systems have simple limiters, almost by definition of the latter. You don’t need to solve fluid dynamics and combustion physics to understand that more air through a carburettor causes an internal combustion engine to run faster.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  But we don't understand the effect of Vitamin C, or D. Your analogy is deeply flawed. We understand engines well enough, but we don't truly understand the machinery of even a single cell of our body. We have broad strokes - take C for a cold. Take D in winter. But there are trained scientists who disagree with even these statements! We have people making a mockery of Nobel Prize winners over it! Where have you ever seen such debate about combustion engines.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > we don't understand the effect of Vitamin C, or D Sure. But we know they are important. Despite being “single molecules.” > We have broad strokes - take C for a cold. Take D in winter. But there are trained scientists who disagree with even these statements! Because they appear unsubstantiated. You’re describing treatments. That’s a different ball game. > We have people making a mockery of Nobel Prize winners over it Pauling did not win his Nobel for vitamin C.
    - mandmandam 3y ago
      > Sure. But we know they are important. Despite being “single molecules.” The point is that there's huge debate on how they work, why they work, whether they work for this and that, etc, despite them being about as tiny and simple in form as you could ask for. And as far as I know no one has ever claimed that Vitamin C and D are not single molecules, so I've no idea why you put that in quotes. It's relevant that they're not, for example, the mixture of hundreds or even thousands of synergistic and antagonistic compounds, in various quantities, found in every single plant. > Because they appear unsubstantiated. You’re describing treatments. That’s a different ball game. Taking C for a cold, or D in winter, is NOT unsubstantiated - there are studies that show effect, and studies that show no effect. It's debated. That's exactly my point, that even these simple and tiny molecules inspire massive confusion and debate. It's in no way like an engine. The body and how it processes things like vitamins is so, so much more complex. You can say this same thing about thousands of molecules and simple substances, which the scientismic community stands behind despite huge debate - SSRIs, anti-psychotics, glyphosate, etc. We don't understand them, and vested interests in white coats want us to believe otherwise. Remember tobacco being promoted by doctors? It wasn't that long ago. The point, again, is this: that if we can have so much uncertainty about such tiny and simple things, why would we believe it's safe to muck about with our food supply (GMO monocultures), or to declare glyphosate safe and cover the planet with it, or claim that mRNA vaccines are utterly harmless (despite immediate evidence to the contrary, as now proven beyond doubt). Remember CFCs, PFAS, thalidomide? These things are fundamentally different from your example of a simple combustion engine. They're complex on a level far beyond our current ability to comprehend. Even if we think we know what's going on, we really, really don't. We have hints, we have hunches, we have incomplete models with giant and dangerous holes in.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Two points: > experts continue to weigh in that we don't get enough essential vitamins and minerals through our diets First, would be better to list some specifics rather than "experts say". But even if so, saying that people don't get enough of some micronutrient X from food, it doesn't necessarily follow that supplementation with pills will lead to better health (except in some specific and extreme circumstances that rarely affect people these days, e.g. scurvy). Second, this was not the entire controversy around Pauling's vitamin C fantasy. His recommended doses were orders of magnitude larger than recommended amounts - it wasn't just about being "more personalized". Nevermind that Pauling's vitamin C theories have been thoroughly disproven.

thenerdhead 3y ago
1. No, because the specifics change every week. One week you're deficient in fiber, the next Vitamin D. Look to the mainstream news or online articles for this ridiculousness. 2. Maybe consider looking at modern research. https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-central/blog/2020/yun-cantley-vitamin-c https://www.cancer.gov/research/key-initiatives/ras/ras-cent... > Nevermind that Pauling's vitamin C theories have been thoroughly disproven. Nothing in science is proven. Only re-evaluated.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  The funny thing about the link that you give is that the hypothesis around intravenous Vitamin C is literally the exact opposite around Pauling's beliefs of oral vitamin C. That is, taken intravenously, Vitamin C generates free radicals like hydrogen peroxide that are particularly dangerous to cancer cells. This is the exact opposite of oral administration of Vitamin V where it acts as an antioxidant.
  - thenerdhead 3y ago
    Maybe read his book so you can hear what he has to say about it rather than your interpretation of it. Anyway, the article I linked summarizes it fine too: > So why did the Pauling and Mayo Clinic trials have different results? There are at least two crucial differences. First, the Mayo Clinic trials abruptly stopped the ascorbate administration, switching to traditional chemotherapy, when the patient developed signs of tumor progression. Thus, the overall median time of vitamin C treatment under the Mayo Clinic trials was only 2.5 months, while the Pauling and Cameron trials treated patients for the duration of the entire study period or as long as 12 years. Secondly, the Mayo Clinic trials administered 10 g of daily ascorbate to patients only orally, while the Cameron and Pauling trials administered their vitamin C both orally and intravenously. This difference in the two dosage routes proved highly consequential.