Vitamin Scam

Vitamins can kill.

    I was having dinner with some friends last night when the same old topic of food supplements and vitamins reared its ugly head again. “What do you mean vitamins don’t do any good? Come-on. Everyone needs vitamins. Well any way, at least they can’t hurt you.”  You know, I’ve been dealing with this ridiculous misconception for years and I’m getting a bit tired of it.  My position has always been that for the vast majority of people, vitamins are a waste of money.  The battle, of course has been a losing one.  Health in a bottle whether pitched from the back of a covered wagon or delivered as a slick TV ad has sold well for hundreds of years.  Folks can’t seem to get it through their heads that like happiness, you can’t buy health.
    Last year, Americans spent $2.3 billion on nutritional supplements. A new study, that appeared in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association found a higher risk of death for people taking antioxidant vitamins: 4 percent for those taking vitamin E, 7 percent for beta carotene and 16 percent for vitamin A.  It is important to note that the study was carried out as a “meta-analysis”.  This type of study looks at a very large number of other studies (in this case 47 double blind randomized studies involving 180,938 participants) that have been selected for their quality of research. 
    Many researchers now believe antioxidants work only when they are in food, or that people who eat vitamin-rich food are healthier simply because they take better care of themselves. Furthermore, it has been known for quite some time that beta-carotene supplements have been found to increase lung cancer risk in smokers.
    Eat a healthy diet, have a couple of glasses of wine every day, exercise regularly and manage the everyday risks in you life in a smart way.  Apart from this, your health is pretty much out of your hands.  And…if you really feel you need to give your money away, there are worthier causes than the vitamin and food supplement industry.

An old Italian saying pretty well says it all (I'll leave you to find the translation): "Mangia bene e caca forte non avrai paura della morta."

Joseph Froncioni

Comments

[AllyM]

Wow Zach, 35 a day is a huge amount. As for vitamins, I think some people need to take them, but many don't. Eating healthy and proper takes care of the proper nutrients for the vast majority of people. Adding in some supplements may help a little, but it depends on the person. 35 is definitely too extreme, though, I think.

[Zach]

*sigh* Just because I previewed, doesn't mean I said things the way I meant to.

This sentance:

" I noticed that effect after I read an article about how the heat pressing process destroys a lot of the vitamin."

Should have read:

"I noticed that effect *and* after*ward* I read an article about how the heat pressing process destroys a lot of the vitamin."

It would read better still:

"I noticed that effect before I read..."

Sorry for the confusion, and the second post.

[Zach]

I used to be one of those people that swallowed handfuls of vitamins. At one point I was taking 35 pills/day. I can understand your POV completely after that.

However, today I've cut way back, and instead focus on living healthier in other ways, but I still take some vitamins, those I've determined actually help me specifically.

I take Vitamin C, because if I don't I get sick more often and have more hangnails. I take a B-50 complex, because it evens out my mood. I take potassium because when I don't I get painful leg cramps. And I take Omega 3-6-9, because my brain seems to function better with it.

Are these suppliments actually helping? I dunno. It may only be the placebo effect. However, I believe they actually do help. If I try to take a pressed pill instead of my normal gelatin capsule I don't get the benefits. I noticed that effect after I read an article about how the heat pressing process destroys a lot of the vitamin.

I guess the point of my comment is that while I agree that most supplements are worthless, there are some that do work, even if it's little more than a placebo. I certainly wouldn't recommend spending more than 50USD/mo on vitamins, in any case. :)