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The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Supplements
- codyb 13y agoThe imbalance makes sense (too many antioxidants, or too much of a vitamin, etc). I also always wondered if people who took vitamins were less likely to eat healthy as well. Or perhaps even if they do eat healthy then by eating healthy they're creating an imbalance. I wonder if you could take very small doses and eat poor;y and do okay? It seems not.
- jszmajda 13y agoYeah, also wondering if there are other correlations they didn't consider. That's the problem with these articles---all the evidence points to one answer, but is that causation or correlation?
- eshvk 13y ago> Yeah, also wondering if there are other correlations they didn't consider. That's the problem with these articles---all the evidence points to one answer, but is that causation or correlation? My stats professor refused to read any pop-sci articles of this kind. His thesis was that bad statistics permeates the "lower sciences" (his words, not mine) and that just devolves into gibberish when it hits the mainstream.
- doberpen 13y agoYou didn't actually read the article did you? They weren't talking just about retrospective studies, seeing who gets cancer and whether they took vitamins or not. The article talked about multiple randomized double blind placebo trials. If you get a bunch of random people, give some these high doses of vitamins and give some a placebo, the ones getting the vitamins did worse.
- Retric 13y agoUnfortunately that says nothing about people who are not megadosing on vitamins or who benifit in other ways thus offsetting the risks.
- DanBC 13y agoGood diet and exercise is more useful than poor diet, no exercise, and supplements. Some people (children under 5; pregnant women; etc) will need supplements, and many people benefit from Vitamin D supplements.
- MikeCapone 13y agoThe article at first seems to be talking abou "vitamins" in general but then goes into great detail about megadosing on vitamin C and trials with vitamin E. Doesn't seem like that's quite the same thing. Personally, I take omega 3, vitamin D (gelcaps, it's fat-soluble), and kelp (for iodine) daily. That article doesn't say much about those.
- draugadrotten 13y agoAgree. Vitamin D supplements may be healthy for people living north of New York. http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_weller_could_the_sun_be_good_for_your_heart.html http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_weller_could_the_sun_be_goo...
- ronaldx 13y agoI understood that dietary Vitamin D isn't well absorbed and is of limited benefit in high quantities - It's far better to get daily sunlight, even in Northern climes. Disclaimer: not able to watch the video
- MikeCapone 13y agoVitamin D is well absorbed if you take it in gelcap form, as it's fat soluble. Many people take it from "dry" tablets and that's why it's not well absorbed. This can be verified with blood tests.
- lilkevvers 13y agoHaving a substance in your blood doesn't imply that your body is benefiting from it, or even using it.
- MikeCapone 13y agoNo, but it's better than not having it even get to your blood, especially if you test for the bio-available compound in the blood.
- terhechte 13y agoI wonder if you get the same kind of negative effects when you eat too many fruits. I tend to eat a lot of fruits throughout the day.
- ValentineC 13y agoThis may be scientifically unproven, but I'm a believer that the negative effects from fruits come from all that sugar in them.
- takluyver 13y agoI doubt even a committed frugivore gets close to the doses discussed in that article. Oranges, for instance, are quite rich in vitamin C, but you'd still have to eat about 30 to get the 3000mg dose described. And as ValentineC says, the sugar in all that fruit is probably more significant.
- Bjoern 13y agoEverything is "poison" it just depends on the dose.
- lingben 13y agothe only supplement which has been shown to have a net positive impact on health in long term studies is vitamin D3 - and its not even a 'vitamin' but a secosteroidal hormone
- ChuckMcM 13y agoAnd this is why science sucks. And I mean that in a supportive way. It can tell us that the answer we want to believe is not the correct answer. Unfortunately it takes a very strong individual to accept that when what they want to believe is the belief that is wrong. My personal experience is that older folks (>65) get stuck more firmly than younger folks. It is especially sad when someone you care about deeply believes so strongly in a reality that exists only for them.
- DanBC 13y ago> My personal experience is that older folks (>65) get stuck more firmly than younger folks. Did you not read the thread on HN just this week full of 911 truthers?
- PavlovsCat 13y agoGotta love the irony in that.
- Alex3917 13y ago> Did you not read the thread on HN just this week full of 911 truthers? You mean like the US head of conter-terrorism and the secretary of transportation? Or several of the 9/11 commission members themselves?
- jlgreco 13y agoIt's not a problem that is seen only with old people, but it really does seem to me that old people are over-represented. Almost all of the truthers I know "in real life" are over 50.
- eevilspock 13y agoSee The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Rev...
- ladzoppelin 13y agoIf you take any kind of daily drug for anything then you will probably need some sort of supplement to counteract the deficiencies the drug is creating. If you have electronic devices , like a smartphone, then a melatonin deficiency is created and supplementation of melatonin can be a great benefit.
- michaelfeathers 13y agoI remember seeing a doctor speaking in a news story about how we overuse vitamins and supplements, most of which simply pass through our bodies. He said "Americans have the most expensive urine in the world."
- da02 13y agoI remember seing a study on the WWW about how vitamin fanatics are healhier than regular multi-vitamin users: http://www.landmarkstudy.com/ http://www.landmarkstudy.com/ I wouldn't trust a doctor compared to a bunch of eggheads who studied vitamin fanatics. Doctors are constantly misinterpreting studies. (Not to say I don't either.)
- TheCoelacanth 13y agoPeople obsessed with their health are healthier than people who aren't? That's a shocker.
- da02 13y agoI'm sorry. I should have linked to an English translation of the study: http://www.remedyspot.com/showthread.php/155664-Dietary-Supplement-Fanatics-Healthiest-Of-All http://www.remedyspot.com/showthread.php/155664-Dietary-Supp... "Nearly nine in ten multi-supplement users consumed 20 or more different kinds of supplements throughout the year... The results of the study are startling. Instead of anticipated side effects and overdosage, researchers found the following:" * Vitamin E levels among multi-supplement users were more than double that of non-users and multivitamin users. * Risk for diabetes was 73% less, coronary heart disease 52% less.. * Blood serum levels of carotenoids (beta carotene, lycopene, lutein) were three higher among multi-supplement users than non-users, and double that of multivitamin users. Except for the blood serum levels, I concede most of this does not counter your argument of correlation vs. causation.
- oblique63 13y agoNot directly about the article, but for anyone interested in finding out what actual research has to say about any supplement you might be interested in, http://examine.com/ http://examine.com/ is a great resource to explore for that.
- da02 13y agoThanks for the link. I never knew about it.
- ericxb 13y agoThanks for the link. Here is another similar site: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/display/substance http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/display/substance
- narrator 13y agoI think a lot of people on this thread are guilty of cognitive laziness. Either all supplements are bad at any dose or they're all good at any dose. Nobody wants to talk about science because reading medical studies is hard. Reading this article reminds me of trying to have technical bio-medical conversations with doctors. They blow me off and give me the same baby talk they give all their other patients. That's the way the author of this article writes, broad baby talk generalizations. It's the reaction I'd imagine I'd get if I tried to have a conversation about digital signal encoding with my cable TV installer. They don't care, it's not their job, it's not important and they just do their job the way they do it for everybody and get paid either way.
- oblique63 13y agoYeah, that phenomenon plagues everything diet/nutrition/fitness these days. Doctors themselves aren't necessarily scientists nor researchers, and in practicality it's hard to have that kind of wide depth of knowledge when you're supposed to be a 'general' physician anyway. The problem arises from our culture which turns everything doctors say into a holy tautology that dominates public discourse (without actually understanding the matter), to the point where it doesn't even matter what scientific research comes up with, because "those scientists never make up their minds anyway"... sigh. It's when you realize that even a rudimentary understanding of the scientific process would avoid that kind of misunderstanding, that it puts into perspective how sad our situation is. This is largely thanks to the media and not individual people themselves, but it's still quite annoying to say the least. But even without that, if people subsequently understood the role and limitations of doctors, such critical self-research wouldn't be so rare anymore anyway. A doctor's role is like that of a consulting company with you as the client: you're always going to be better suited to understand your problem domain, a doctor will just serve as a guide to make sure everything makes sense and will then help you implement a solution. Or well, that would be the ideal case anyway. I know I've had my fair share of poor doctors too.
- jjindev 13y agoMy gut feel, based on a BS Chem and then casual reading, has been that the occasional vitamin is best. Keep a bottle in the cupboard, take a one when you feel like it (no more than once a week). Replace the bottle when it expires. Chances are you don't need it, and I think the body is really good at snatching up things it needs when that pill rolls by. (I worried about the kidney/etc burden of daily excess, but the idea that daily excess could spur excess in the form of cancer does not surprise.)
- rikelmens 13y agoA must read: http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/54272-another-day-another-pill-2012-supplement-regimen/ http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/54272-another-day-anoth...
- kolev 13y agoYes, nice summary, although, vitamin D should be taken as early in the day as possible, i.e. as far as possible from your bedding time as it disrupts melatonin release: http://www.bulletproofexec.com/bulletproof-your-sleep-with-vitamin-d/ http://www.bulletproofexec.com/bulletproof-your-sleep-with-v...
- wittysense 13y agoYou should be as vitamin-conscious as someone who takes supplements, but with Food. The crux of the problem is with epistemologies like Popper's and Putnam's and the muddled thinking of interpretation of a hard science while lacking a "philosophy of" for that science. Users of the scientific paradigm think of themselves as derivative scientists, on the assumption that scientists know better. It's "mythos" in the sense of metanarrative: it is the deferring of epistemic responsibility, just as Ancient Greek thought deferred the explanations of the natural world to rulings of the God's whimsy.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y agoMagnesium and iodine deficiencies are probably widespread and it's not really possible to address these through modern food. Well over half the population is measurably magnesium deficient. The problem is soil depletion and modern water purification. The case for a lot of vitamins is weak, but I think it's pretty strong for various minerals. I add mineral drops to my drinking water, just in case.
- tocomment 13y agoWhere do you get the drops? I'd add potassium to your list too. The rda for potassium is huge like 10 bananas worth a day. I don't know how anyone can be getting enough potassium.
- kolev 13y agoBuy potassium gluconate. It's nasty, but better than overloading yourself with carbs from bananas. I'm not sure if you're aware, but bananas are radioactive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose) and, BTW, brazil nuts are more, but as a nice benefit, bananas increase your serotonin levels. :)
- hcarvalhoalves 13y agoYou're right. Besides soil depletion and not having access to mineral water, a big source of Magnesium and Iodine deficiencies are the lack of access to seafood.
- vermontdevil 13y agoIt's amazing that vitamin supplement market is not regulated at all thanks to Orrin Hatch. So many unsupportable claims out there among the products for sale that it makes me dizzy. This market is truly caveat emptor.
- Bjoern 13y agoI don't get this. Focus on a healthy, balanced diet and make sure you include enough variety focusing on plenty of colorful vegetables, fruits and nuts. Exercise regularly and take good care of your body getting enough sleep and enough sunshine. Is that not enough?
- rm445 13y agoNope, because even if you do all those things, at some point your body will start to slow down, you'll get aches and pains you didn't used to have, and some time you will suffer illness. At that point many people are keen to see great benefits from placebos, and the door to quack medicine is open.
- da02 13y agoThe farming techniques used today are different than the ones used in the 1800s and before. So the vegetables/fruits today are not as healthy as they were. Especially when you consider consumers use visual guidelines for health (ie are the fruits plump, juicy, and colorful) instead of nutritional content. The demand for "good looking" food is higher than the demand for healthy food. The food grown in Cuba is probably healthier since the farmers can't afford the more expensive, modern farming techniques.
- arjie 13y agoI have this unsubstantiated belief that most people taking supplements live an unhealthy life otherwise. Many people want a magic solution to things, and taking lots of pills seems to be cure du jour. This is made worse by the fact that there do exist people for whom supplements are required. Without justification, everyone thinks they fall in that group.
- kalleboo 13y agoOr the people eating the pills are the health-conscious ones who don't actually need them since they're already eating healthy. Ironic.
- ypcx 13y agoMaybe not entirely. By overdosing on artificial "vitamins", you drain your body out of the elements needed to process these. The rabbit hole goes a few miles deep. http://www.whale.to/a/shea1.html http://www.whale.to/a/shea1.html
- ValentineC 13y agoDoes anyone know how Ray Kurzweil is faring with his 150 supplements a day? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil#Health_and_aging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil#Health_and_aging
- kolev 13y agoI've been taking similar quantities in years and my WellnessFX labs and annual physicals are perfect. Even if supplements are not help me (much), they are not hurting me (much) either although it's hard to tell as often damage accumulates over years and labs only expose a few pixels of the whole picture.
- FrankenPC 13y agoIf supplementation did nothing, we wouldn't be dosing up with tons of anti-depressants (neuro-transmitter modulation supplements). I agree about isolates, or what people traditionally call vitamins. But for genetic deficiencies for neurological problems, supplements can be awesome. Personally, I take 5-HTP, GABA and NAC daily and really feel the difference. See for yourself. Keep in mind therapeutic doses of supplements can be rather large. You need Dr. supervision to make sure you aren't damaging your liver/kidneys.
- kolev 13y agoNAC could be a problem. Some suggest it should be taken together with high doses of vitamin C and there are some studies that it increases oxidative stress if you exercise much. I've also read that NAC doesn't really increase Glutathione levels, but concentrates it into the liver helping the detox, but reducing levels outside of the liver can't be a good thing. Just eat avocados, garlic, and take Milk Thistle and you won't need NAC.
- chrisballinger 13y ago5-HTP is potentially cardiotoxic by raising blood serotonin levels.
- kolev 13y agoYup, I stopped taking it long ago, although, high serotonin is nice.
- com2kid 13y ago> Personally, I take 5-HTP 5-HTP daily? I hope you have a spare heart on hand! From my understanding, you can take ECCG with 5-HTP to help prevent some of the heart damage serotonin in your blood causes, but even then. There is no reason to take 5-HTP daily, a small dose every 3 or 4 days should suffice!
- droithomme 13y agoThe cited article contains phrasing that is designed to be misleading. It says for example, "Seven previous studies had already shown that vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease and shortened lives. Still, in 2012, more than half of all Americans took some form of vitamin supplements. " This makes a direct comparison between people taking any vitamins at all to studies showing that very specific vitamins, under very specific and unusual circumstances such as megadosing and certain preexisting conditions, can cause problems. Well even water can cause problems when megadosed, and yet the fact that most people drink water daily is not relevant to that. Also, the author of this article, Paul Offit, is has serious credibility and corruption problems beyond writing articles designed to mislead people. He has previously claimed that it is perfectly safe for children to take "10,000 vaccines at once" (and originally he claimed 100,000 but reduced it when it was questioned). Even understanding the benefits of vaccines, there are trade offs with them and it is certainly not safe to take 10,000 at once. Offit holds a $1.5 million dollar research chair which is funded by Merck. He also sold the right to his future royalties of a vaccine he developed for $182 million, of which he received around $46 million for a rotavirus vaccine. This was interesting since he had previously pushed this vaccine during his job at the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which was a serious conflict of interest that ended up making him quite rich. Here is an interesting investigative report into Offit's conflicts of interest and hiding of financial relationships. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/25/cbsnews_investigates/main4296175.shtml?tag=mncol;lst;2 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/25/cbsnews_investigat...
- scott_s 13y agoit is certainly not safe to take 10,000 at once I think this claim needs justification. Just because it feels true is not enough.
- throwit1979 13y agoJustification: a typical vaccine volume is 0.5mL. Injecting 5L of any liquid into a child intramuscularly would cause severe health problems, to say the least.
- kolev 13y agoMost people buy crappy vitamins and supplements at Target, Costco, etc. There are many forms of Vitamin E, for example, and 99.9% of people just take one of the 8. This is just an example. It's a similar situation with Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Folic Acid vs Folate, etc. I usually ignore those as it's similar to read studies about beef when those are done with antibiotic and hormone rich meats and if you eat pasture-raised, organic beef - it has a different quality and nutritional profile. All these studies aim to scare people away from preventive medicine and send you back into the drug-dispensing MDs. Yes, you don't need supplements if you eat a healthy, traditional diet, but even organic foods don't have the same quality and properties as those freshly grown, picked, etc. Supplements are an insurance and people need to very, very carefully select theirs as there are tons of scammers in the field! Just got a mailer from Walmart and it's 2/3rds ads of supplements! Same with Costco!
- SeanLuke 13y agoYour claim, as I understand it, is that Target, Costco, and Walmart stock substandard vitamins compared to those you can find if you are "very very careful". This is an extraordinary claim: and you are asked to provide extraordinary proof. Do you have any?
- kolev 13y agoLet me give you one simple example: you can find magnesium oxide at those stores, which is the worst form of magnesium on the market. For similar amount of money though you can buy magnesium glycinate, orotate, malate, taurate, and other chelated forms of magnesium that absorb better, have additional benefits, and save you the digestive system discomfort. Of course, the best prices and convenience (autoship) is available online, of course, plus, most stores offer additional 5-20% discounts. I can add a lot more examples of the various forms of vitamin E, B vitamins, vitamin D, vitamin K, folate/folic acid, vitamin A, etc. The formulation of the mass market brands are not only worse in terms of absorption, but are often harmful like folic acid and vitamin A. Even basic supplements like calcium not taken with vitamin K and D3 and dangerous, but anyway. There was a recent study that omega-3 EFAs increase prostate cancer risks, which was so poorly conducted that it's not even funny! There are many people with hidden agendas in "science" and especially when it comes to nutrition, it's not hard to engineer a study that will give you the desired outcome. It's been done many times in the past, Big Pharma is on a war against supplements, so, take all these with a grain (or chunk) of salt!
- continuations 13y agoThere's also study showing vitamin supplementation reduces cancer risks: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1380451 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1380451
- dkarl 13y agoThe article treats the belief in supplements entirely as a case of well-nourished people pursuing quack fixes, ignoring scientifically credible practices such as food fortification using iodine and folic acid, the widely-known connection between vitamin C and scurvy, the use of iron supplements to treat anemia, and the historical experience with real malnutrition. The article makes it sound like a ludicrous idea that snuck into the public consciousness via the senility of Linus Pauling in the late 1960s, but vitamin supplementation makes much more sense as an attempt to continue applying a historically successful formula of improving human health by identifying previously unrecognized dietary deficiencies and correcting them. Also, the ending of the article destroys its credibility. The author is no less an intellectual hack than the people he writes about.
- mikevm 13y agoYes, but people mistake a threshold response for a dose-dependent response. Maybe certain vitamins (and pseudo-vitamins like vitamin D3) have a threshold response, that is, you only need a certain amount of it in your body for it to function properly, and adding any more will not make you any healthier (overdosing on vitamins can be fatal, so you can't just up the dosage).
- gwern 13y agoAnd also timing effects. To take the previously-mentioned iodine effect - while administering iodine in childhood or later will eliminate goiters due to iodine deficiency, as far as anyone can tell, post-natal iodine does little to nothing about the retardation or intelligence decreases caused by iodine deficiency, and even in pregnancy, the effect of supplementation seems to start decreasing from conception.
- codersteve 13y agoThere are cases where science has proven that supplementation has value--adding Vitamin D to milk, for example. In specific cases of deficiency it has been proven to work. That doesn't mean more is better. There is no evidence to indicate that the general population taking multi-vitamins helps anything.
- jotm 13y agoOK, let's get one thing straight: vitamins and supplements ARE USEFUL. The article seems to focus on them as cures - which they are not. Saying that a vitamin is a cure for anything is like saying a loaf of bread is a cure. Vitamins are fuel - the more intense activities you do, the more you use them. IF you have a good diet, you don't need multivitamins/supplements. But if you have a homogenous diet (eat the same thing every day and nothing else), then vitamins and supplements are much more useful than harmful. Moreover, no matter what diet you have, if you do bodybuilding or intensive physical or mental exertion, vitamins and minerals from supplements are almost a must. It's like using normal fuel vs jet fuel - no matter how good your bioreactor (stomach) is, it just cannot extract all the vitamins and minerals you need for that kind of exertion. Most bodybuilders know that a dose of pure protein powder is much more effective for muscle building than any amount of meat or cheese. Same goes for glutamine and other supplements, and of course vitamins. The article also focuses on megadoses - well, no s#@t, a megadose of anything is bad for you. 3 grams of vitamin C per day is batshit insane in my book - 500-1000mg is more than enough. But don't just take what I said at face value. Like Einstein said, don't trust everything you read on the Internet - check with several different sources, read some research abstracts before making up your mind and storing ANY information as true in your brain.
- TheEzEzz 13y ago> IF you have a good diet, you don't need multivitamins/supplements. But if you have a homogenous diet (eat the same thing every day and nothing else), then vitamins and supplements are much more useful than harmful. This is exactly what the article is contesting, but I think the confusion is mostly a semantic one. If "vitamin" means "molecules necessary for good health" then you are right. If "vitamin" means the typical molecules found in multivitamins then the science supports the article's claim.
- jotm 13y agoBy vitamin(s) I mean the chemical compound(s) that have been proven to be absorbed from food and used by the body. If you get a cheap multivitamin that doesn't actually contain the real stuff, well that's a whole other problem.
- spydum 13y agoCould the higher incidence of cancers be that the supplements were actually helping the cancer cells grow and be healthier than they otherwise would be?
- kolev 13y agoSome really are and that's why supplements should be taken carefully and along with frequent labs, but I doubt increasing cancer rates is due to supplements as not that many people take them regularly... yet!
- Osmium 13y agoI remember reading somewhere that due to how the vitamins are compressed into tablet form, you actually absorb very little of them anyway. But I can't verify this, because I can't find a citation right now...
- adventured 13y agoI'm amazed at the confusion in regards to what's deduced from the consumption of vegetables and similarly healthy foods (and using that to push vitamins). It's every bit as important, in my opinion, to not eat killer foods, as it is to eat vegetables. That is, a neutral effect alone would be enough to show dramatic health improvements. This is where the pro vitamin arguments went wrong from day one. Water isn't a miracle elixir that cures cancer. Strip out all high fructose corn syrup and sugar from all American beverages, and the equivalent conclusion would be to suggest that water cures obesity, diabetes and cancer (when in fact the absence of sugar and HFCS is what's doing the trick). Also, telling me that people took vitamins without showing me their specific day to day diets and exercise routines, is absurdity to put it very mildly. Dietary input and exercise is radically more important than the vitamins in the health outcomes.
- rdouble 13y agoIs that really true, though? It seems like you'd be healthier eating healthy salads and a donut, rather than never eating a donut, but never eating a salad, either.
- sandGorgon 13y agoThere is an even more interesting (damning?) article - "Dont Take Your Vitamins". http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/dont-take-your-vitamins.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2& http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/dont-take-y... Two years later the same journal published another study on vitamin supplements. In it, 18,000 people who were at an increased risk of lung cancer because of asbestos exposure or smoking received a combination of vitamin A and beta carotene, or a placebo. Investigators stopped the study when they found that the risk of death from lung cancer for those who took the vitamins was 46 percent higher.
- gboudrias 13y agoFrom the same author...
- pallandt 13y agoMisleading title. Sometimes it would do you really good to take certain kind of vitamin(s). However, the 'supplement' class doesn't include just vitamins. It seems articles that attempt to debunk 'myths' are getting quite popular, in disfavor of real science/research. This one is mostly one-sided and doesn't show much effort at all in at least gathering some counter-arguments. Also, metastudies such as the ones enumerated in this piece can sometimes be flawed by the very methodology they were constructed. Journalistic sensationalism.
- lightyrs 13y agoThis guy is a pharmaceuticals shill — of course he denounces his competitors.
- zw123456 13y agoI realize that a personal testament is anecdotal, but about 10 years ago I stopped taking vitamins and instead just focused on a balanced diet. I feel better and it costs less. There are legitimate reasons for some people to take vitamins, but if you can do it with a better diet, I think you are better off. If you are taking vitamins, try not taking them and instead work on your diet and see what you think. I think somethings are difficult to prove scientifically and instead you have to do what works for you.
- rsync 13y agoNo mention yet of Nick Lane and his (wonderful) books: - Oxygen - Power, Sex, Suicide If you want a fascinating, very readable, well laid out argument against the entire notion of antioxidant supplementation (as well as a fascinating, technical but not too technical, pop-sci read) these are it. tl;dr: Ingested antioxidants have no way to target the specific area in mitochondria where the damage would take place, and even if they did, it would probably be negative because free radicals are an essential cell signaling mechanism that aids in weeding out damaged cells.
- roin 13y agoBenefits or risks of vitamins is one of the most confusing medical topics to assess for an average consumer. After hearing about benefits of vitamin C, zinc, vitamin D, etc., only to later read that some doctors say it's going to kill you, I had decided to ditch them altogether. But a year ago there was a large, randomized, double-blind study (not something most of these studies can claim) that measured a regular dose multivitamin, not huge megadose supplements that tend to focus on one or two compounds. The result showed 8% fewer cancers. The subjects were all men and were all doctors, so one could infer that they were much healthier than average. I've been taking a simple multivitamin since. I wouldn't be shocked to learn in ten years that I'm doing the wrong thing, but this is the most convincing study I've seen in any direction. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/health/daily-multivitamin-may-reduce-cancer-risk-clinical-trial-finds.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/health/daily-multivitamin-...
- shirro 13y agoSales of unnecessary products is simply a consequence of capitalism working properly. People create needs that didn't exist previously through marketing which is all most "health" advice on television (eg Dr Oz) or other media is. Legitimate nutritional deficiencies and cherry picked studies help fuel the marketing strategy. They get fantastic viral social media support from all the hypochondriacs, paranoid conspiracists and other health nuts who can't think critically and lack the scientific education to assess the marketing. Some vitamins and vitamin analoques do have legitimate benefits as medication but best leave the dosing to a qualified health professional. Much better to eat a balanced diet with lots of vegetables, fruit and some whole protein. And get some sun in moderation if the climate supports it.
- cko 13y agoWhat surprises me is my fairly recent discovery that larger-than-life people like Pauling could be "gullible." (Though I'm sure there's a better word for it.) As I'm reading about Pauling and the common cold and cancer and then "every disease known to man", I realized that intelligence alone does not make one immune to self-delusion. I started reading Walter Isaacson's biography on Jobs a few days ago and it's the same realization. I guess I myself was deluded to think that these "titans" are some how superior in every way to "the rest of us."
- ck2 13y agoUsed to get bad headaches almost daily. One crazy week I forgot to take my daily multivitamin a couple times - then I realized that the week was more headache-free. So I stopped taking it entirely and now I very rarely get headaches. As a control I tried taking it again and even another brand and headaches came back.
- tobtoh 13y agoThat's not really proof of anything since your headache could be purely psychological especially since you already suspect that the multivitamins are causing your headaches which means you are not an independent observer, but a biased (if well meaning) participant. The correct way to prove it would be a double blind test using placebos. ie not something you could prove on your own.
- mesozoic 13y agoThey could have a friend prepare supplements that are real and placebo. Take them and record the results. It would go further to prove the effect within the sample population of themselves which is likely all they care about.
- mistercow 13y agoThis article seems relevant: http://lesswrong.com/lw/20i/even_if_you_have_a_nail_not_all_hammers_are_the/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/20i/even_if_you_have_a_nail_not_all_... In summary, many of the studies that have shown scary correlations like "multivitamins increase mortality" are (according to the author) based on inappropriate (but easy to apply) statistical models. Scientists are too-often not trained well enough in how to evaluate the model they are using to see if it is appropriate for the task, and peer review boards often do not include statisticians. A simple summary of how this can apply to vitamin supplements: suppose you do a trial where you give different groups different doses of a vitamins and then monitor their health. Most vitamins are detrimental to have too little of, helpful to have the right amount of, and then increasingly detrimental to have too much of. The graph of their benefit/harm would be a curve starting at a low number, curving up to a high peak, and then dropping down to lower and lower numbers off to infinity. If you fit this graph to a line, you'll see a downward slope, giving an indication like "multivitamins increase mortality rates".
- martingoodson 13y agoWe cannot trust Paul Offit. See my comment on his previous article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5848390 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5848390
- dschiptsov 13y ago99% of world's population live happily without supplements. And, of course, natural vitamins are necessity. Children die from malnutrition without them.
- known 13y agoVitamin deficiency could be a side effect of medication you take. For e.g B1 deficiency due to metformin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidiabetic_drugs#Comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidiabetic_drugs#Comparison