5 ms·
Interesting that a lot of these things seem to be that both too much and too little being bad. Tricky to hit the sweet spot but it seems the best way is usually
by stephen_g 3y ago
Interesting that a lot of these things seem to be that both too much and too little being bad. Tricky to hit the sweet spot but it seems the best way is usually try and do it with diet.
I've seen a few times where they've noticed that, say, higher antioxidant intake is correlated with good health outcomes, so they set up a trial to give people a mega-dose to try and fight cancer or something and find it actually makes things worse. Seems for a lot of these nutrients and vitamins the benefit is an upside-down U-shape and supplementation can put you way past the peak benefit and into where it becomes harmful again...
Which is why multivitamins seems to be a bit of a scam and studies can't find any benefit from them. It's probably worth getting some bloods done and only take what you're deficient in - for example vitamin D being a common one.
- ta988 3y agoAntioxidants are good in people and animals with a diet poor in vegetable and fruits. That's why all those studies show wondeful effects in rats that never translated to humans.
- DinaCoder99 3y ago> Which is why multivitamins seems to be a bit of a scam and studies can't find any benefit from them. As someone who has had scurvy before, I can guarantee you some people can find a benefit from them. Of course if you expect them to make you "healthier" (as if this is a one-dimensional property, which is problematic to begin with) regardless of your health to begin with you may find yourself unhappy with the results.
- viraptor 3y agoI suspect OP actually meant multivitamins. They come in such small doses that they likely don't achieve anything. I'm taking a few vitamins for specific results and thought "maybe I can just replace them with one of those prepared mixes?" Yeah, no. They contain 5-40x less than a single dedicated pill. Also, they're advertised as a generic "feel better" thing, while most people won't be deficient in 90% of what those pills include. So what's the point them?
- DinaCoder99 3y ago> Also, they're advertised as a generic "feel better" thing, while most people won't be deficient in 90% of what those pills include. So what's the point them? That seems like more of a problem with advertising than the actual multivitamin. > So what's the point them? Presumably to overcome nutritional deficiencies!
- Mistletoe 3y agoHow did you get scurvy?
- DinaCoder99 3y agoLack of vitamin C. I'm surprised this isn't better known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy
- Mistletoe 3y agoYes I know lol, I'm asking how you had such low vitamin C intake with a modern diet.
- krisoft 3y ago> Seems for a lot of these nutrients and vitamins the benefit is an upside-down U-shape This is true for almost anything, not just in medicine but also in engineering and in life in general. If you are seeing a variable where the benefits increase as the variable increases you are probably just not sampling the range where it plateus or the range where further increase of the variable becomes detrimental. Almost as if the saying “everything in moderation” has empirical basis.
- toss1 3y agoYup. One engineer friend/mentor often had cause to criticize the "some is good, [so] more is better" approach to anything; he pretty much considered anyone doing that to be idiots. And he's right — adding more of anything without thinking and measuring will almost always make things worse at some point.
- gryn 3y agoYou can go meta and apply that to thinking and measuring itself.