Vitamin pills don't work and may be bad for you
bbc.com
bbc.com
This article makes sweeping generalizations that vitamin supplements "don't work" based on a couple of studies on beta-carotene. Many of us already thought beta-carotene supplementation would be worthless. And I bet once they do a study of vitamin E supplementation, it will also be worthless or harmful. On the other hand, you're not going to find a study proving vitamin C supplmentation is harmful. And I very much doubt if they did an isolated study on non-beta-carotene vitamin A, they'd find harmful effects.
They do cite quite a few articles that show negative effects of specific vitamins.
The BBC article is merely clickbait.. People love to jump on the 'vitamins are actually dangerous' bandwagon. if you do a bit of digging into the studies they're quoting you'll find that their claims are unjustified.
The problem is that a lot of multivitamins (and supplements in general) have doses which are all over the place, and megadoses are quite common. You'll also find many reviews and testimonials that swear to the efficacy of any given dose of these supplements. On top of that, many doctors recommend that people take "a multivitamin", without any further guidance as to the ingredients or their dosage. Finally, a lot of people don't trust doctors and believe in alternative medicine, naturopathy, or what have you, from which they'll often hear recommendations to megadose because allegedly, the RDA's are set way too low (for a variety of reasons, depending on the supplement).
There's a lot of conflicting medical advice out there, and for the average consumer (who may have a host of medical issues, or suspected issues) it's not always as clear as "just take the RDA".
It's not a stretch that there are other correlations at play here. People who feel sick or lethargic try vitamins.
But I don't think that you'll find a good study that says that it's beneficial, either, unless you had a deficiency.
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edit: and megadoses could certainly turn out to be harmful...
"[...] Take vitamin C, Pauling’s preferred supplement. At the correct dose, vitamin C neutralises highly charged free radicals by accepting their free electron. It’s a molecular martyr, taking the hit upon itself to protect the cellular neighbourhood.
"But by accepting an electron, the vitamin C becomes a free radical itself, able to damage cell membranes, proteins and DNA. As the food chemist William Porter wrote in 1993, '[vitamin C] is truly a two-headed Janus, a Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde, an oxymoron of antioxidants.'
"Thankfully, in normal circumstances, the enzyme vitamin C reductase can return vitamin C’s antioxidant persona. But what if there’s so much vitamin C that it simply can’t keep up with supply? Although such simplifying of complex biochemistry is in itself problematic, the clinical trials above provide some possible outcomes."
I would not generalize this to the average person, however, due to evidence of harm (such as hemorrhagic stroke [2] and increased mortality [3] )
1 = https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2928471/
I'll see how it goes, I'm giving her a three-month lasting benefit of a doubt, because according to my Google research, what she says is true, but I'm probably taking a blood test before and after to see what's up - and I'll consult with my doctor about it prior to taking the pills.
I no longer take them every day but I pop one periodically if I'm more tired/irritable/fuzzy than I would consider normal.
Given that at the time it was Winter in the UK and I'd gotten into a sleep pattern of being awake at night and asleep during the day, I think a Vitamin D deficiency was pretty likely.
>Given that at the time it was Winter in the UK and I'd gotten into a sleep pattern of being awake at night and asleep during the day, I think a Vitamin D deficiency was pretty likely.
Possibly (assuming you didn't eat much milk or fish). However your symptoms probably had more to do with your sleep pattern than vitamin D.
They've been hinting at it for a while now, and the new advice came out in July.
I'd like to join the mailing list for the blog entry if you decide to make one!
Vitamin D has a pretty strong position for "general health, all-cause mortality."
It exists and it's not only painful to know how many people don't know about, but the people who trust anecdotal evidence, a small sample size (ding!) a random person with goods to sell (ding!) or healthwayfoodblogvitamins.biz.co
Not saying that the claim isn't true, but scholar.google.com exists and so do .edu, .edu.country, .gov and .gov.country
You can OD on it so always read a label + take medical advise from a professional, not some random HN post :)
Source: my wife, pharmacist (a proper one, she has a doctorate).
Does your wife agree? I'm always open to a second opinion.
In general I agree with your attitude but in the case of D, some of us don't make as much where we live as we would if we lived where our parents or grandparents are from. I.e. my skin is darker than the people who have historically lived at the latitude where I live; my Indian grandparents got a lot more sun than I do. My measured D levels are "low"
The reason I put the quotes around "low" is: my levels are low for the stated levels in the USA. But who were the study group? How wide a variation is reasonable? Nobody has determined that. It's like the height and growth charts we were shown for our baby -- they were determined in the mid 1900s by doctors who looked at WASPy New England kids. Hmm..
To be fair, these longitudinal studies are almost impossible to do.
On the subject of drugs and kids: you have to be crazy careful with pills of any kind if you have kids. Both Paracetamol and Aspirin are deadly to kids in adult doses.
http://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2016/12/09/the-ultimate-vitami...
Steve Gibson has documented his research: https://www.grc.com/health/vitamin-d.htm
Vitamins are a label we give, not on structure, but on function and our own ability to synthesize them.
Vitamin D likely wouldn't be a vitamin were we all still running naked in Africa, but that's mostly not the case.
Reasonable things to do in our tribal days, not so much nowadays. Much easier to spend $15 a year and take a vitamin d after your first meal.
I used to think that going outside (and exercise in general) was something I had to "make time for" and spend energy on. These days I realise that going outside actually boosts energy. I work to live, not live to work.
We also know there's a link between more sunlight and less incidence of other types of cancer. It's still unknown whether this is mediated by Vitamin D or other mechanisms.
Being outside a lot in your coat (because its cold) during the day will give you a lot of the benefits of sunshine, but it won't give you good vitamin D production despite all of the other benefits unfortunately.
Vitamin D can be found in Fish, Egg and it's even added to Milk.
The RDA is only 400 IU.
There's mounting evidence that a regular intake in the thousands of IU (or synthesis from sun bathing, depending on your skin tone, latitude, and cloud cover) has health benefits beyond keeping you out of the hospital.
Examine.com has a comprehensive summary of the current research: https://examine.com/supplements/Vitamin+D/
Tasty things otherwise, it basically tastes like dense chocolate pastry.
If you want 'fast food', then a combo of prewashed veggies, frozen food like trader joes dumplings and things like mealsquares and soylent can work. I myself dont really like soylent.
Well, in order to finally achieve that understanding, what are we going to need to do?
Basically, attempt something like Soylent and see if it works, adjusting it as we learn... which is what they seem to be doing.
I'm interested in what happens when someone takes meal replacements that don't necessarily cover the micro nutrients and then takes multi vitamins.
I don't think we know this. We know that we can live complete, healthy lives on them, but we know that about meat and carbs, too. I'm happy that people are experimenting in an extreme way; that's the best way for me to learn from their experiences what works and what doesn't.
If you actually look at the RDA and Compare to your typical diet you'll find you're way under. At least I was and I eat reasonably well.
I've actually noticed a lot of health benefits since I start taking higher doses of vitamin c.
[1] http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/...
[2] http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/...
[3] http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/...
So now we're just talking about dose, symptoms, and lifestyle. Whether it's an orange or a supplement, the vitamin C still works.
Some studies indicate that a fairly high proportion of the population has "sub-clinical" vitamin deficiency, e.g., in C. I used to get nosebleeds pretty often. I have a diet that's very low in fruits and vegetables. When I started taking C, my nosebleeds went away immediately. I'd rather take the supplement than incorporate fruits and vegetables into my diet.
If you have a deficiency, yes, you need to take more of that particular vitamin. But the evidence is against people without a deficiency taking a general purpose vitamin. A good pointer to recent studies: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/more-evidence-that-routine-...
Yes, but (a) your body's ability to do this decreases as you age, and (b) sun exposure has other downsides such as increased risk of skin cancer, so there's a tradeoff involved.
Stop clinging to that as a reason to shelter indoors and replace life with vitamins and manufactured meals.
Different people's skins have different sensitivities. Also, skin cancer doesn't happen in one exposure; the risk builds up over time.
> Stop clinging to that as a reason to shelter indoors and replace life with vitamins and manufactured meals.
Stop making assumptions. I personally have dark enough skin that a reasonable amount of sun exposure doesn't bother me. But that apparently didn't stop my vitamin D from being low (see my post elsewhere in this thread), so evidently I am dealing with the other thing I mentioned, the fact that your body's ability to make vitamin D from sun exposure decreases with age. So I started taking a supplement. Would you rather I just let my vitamin D be too low no matter how much sun I got?
All of these things have varying degrees of volatility, so cooking can making them more or less bioavailable, and in pill form they oxidize and have a wide range of potency. Cheap supplements almost certainly have no potency so you're just throwing your money away. Most people should just eat real food and not so much of it. (And pizza is not a real food sorry.)
Three articles in this issue address the role of vitamin and mineral supplements for preventing the occurrence or progression of chronic diseases. First, Fortmann and colleagues systematically reviewed trial evidence to update the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation on the efficacy of vitamin supplements for primary prevention in community-dwelling adults with no nutritional deficiencies. After reviewing 3 trials of multivitamin supplements and 24 trials of single or paired vitamins that randomly assigned more than 400 000 participants, the authors concluded that there was no clear evidence of a beneficial effect of supplements on all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, or cancer.
Second, Grodstein and coworkers evaluated the efficacy of a daily multivitamin to prevent cognitive decline among 5947 men aged 65 years or older participating in the Physicians’ Health Study II. After 12 years of follow-up, there were no differences between the multivitamin and placebo groups in overall cognitive performance or verbal memory. Adherence to the intervention was high, and the large sample size resulted in precise estimates showing that use of a multivitamin supplement in a well-nourished elderly population did not prevent cognitive decline. Grodstein and coworkers’ findings are compatible with a recent review (3) of 12 fair- to good-quality trials that evaluated dietary supplements, including multivitamins, B vitamins, vitamins E and C, and omega-3 fatty acids, in persons with mild cognitive impairment or mild to moderate dementia. None of the supplements improved cognitive function.
Third, Lamas and associates assessed the potential benefits of a high-dose, 28-component multivitamin supplement in 1708 men and women with a previous myocardial infarction participating in TACT (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy). After a median follow-up of 4.6 years, there was no significant difference in recurrent cardiovascular events with multivitamins compared with placebo (hazard ratio, 0.89 [95% CI, 0.75 to 1.07]). The trial was limited by high rates of nonadherence and dropouts.
The large body of accumulated evidence has important public health and clinical implications. Evidence is sufficient to advise against routine supplementation, and we should translate null and negative findings into action. The message is simple: Most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death, their use is not justified, and they should be avoided. This message is especially true for the general population with no clear evidence of micronutrient deficiencies, who represent most supplement users in the United States and in other countries.
Linus Pauling lived to be 93. That probably contributed to people believing in megadosing vitamin C.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#/media/File%...
Considering his intelligence and age, I'm sure that it was convincing at the time.
These days more people are living into their second century:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-more-amer...
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/30/472442367/in-one-italian-villa...
Now I don't believe that vitamins are some kind of cure-all either. Vitamins, by their design, are supplements. Meaning they augment an existing healthy diet. From what I read in the article, the people in the study were overloading on vitamins, which I wouldn't be surprised can cause health problems. It's no different that say, overloading on sodium. I often wonder if the synthesizing process and the "filler" material used in vitamins can be generally bad for you.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/supplements-and-safet...
I'm very skeptical about the studies around vitamins and I prefer taking some in the winter since it's the period of the year I feel the most stressed and sleepy.
I already spoke with other people having the same experience and none of them has more insights of how healthy this is or not...
What would be a practical way for folks that don't have anything to do with X field to test if what scientists say is actually true? - at least in such important field as what we consume -
Now I count him as a delusional and deluding self-promoter.
On the other hand, I'm sure that it is good to take small doses of many different vitamins in addition to well-balanced diet.
The evidence seems to say otherwise. There have been many studies over the past decade of general vitamin supplementation, and it does not hold up: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/more-evidence-that-routine-...
As for most things, it's all about the dosage.
But thanks for the link, I'll read that too.
The Dark Side of Linus Pauling's Legacy
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.ht...
I think there is probably a context to Linus Pauling's making an end-run around the medical-industrial complex of his day. My understanding is that the physiologists were making progress in figuring out how biological systems work, while the pharmaceutical industry was coming up with new patent medicines to sell. Medicine has always been a more practical science than a theoretical one, so the doctors understandably tended to listen to the drug companies more than the physiologists.
Linus Pauling singlehandedly did more to make the public at large appreciate the importance of nutrients than anyone else.
Further more, we're not talking about just one study here against a sea of studies in favour of vitamin supplements. Free radical theory has been shown to be effective in a petridish, but it has a neutral or negative effect in most large scale human studies.