Multivitamin Researchers Say 'Case Is Closed' As Studies Find No Health Benefits 554
schwit1 sends this excerpt from CBS:
"'Enough' with the multivitamins already. That's the message from doctors behind three new studies and an editorial that tackled an oft-debated question in medicine: Do daily multivitamins make you healthier? After reviewing the available evidence and conducting new trials, the authors have come to a conclusion of 'no.' 'We believe that the case is closed — supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful,' concluded the authors of the editorial summarizing the new research papers, published Dec. 16 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. 'These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough.' They went on to urge consumers to not 'waste' their money on multivitamins."
supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, and those that don't get a balanced diet?
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Interesting)
Like me. I live alone, and so I don't cook very often. Mostly I get home from work, heat something up quickly and that is dinner.
I started on a daily multivitamin about a year ago, and have since generally felt better. For the minimal expense I will stick with my daily multivitamin.
YMMV.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Interesting)
Our foods, even junk foods, are highly fortified. They have been for almost a hundred years. At one time a large percentage of American adults had real nutrient deficiencies, leading to deformities, vision problems, and most visibly skin conditions. The government fixed all of that by adulterating our food, and they continue to do that (unless you buy "organic" dry food stuffs).
If you feel better because of a multivitamin, it's almost certainly because of a single vitamin deficiency. Probably vitamin D, which is common and which can cause depression. A blood workup probably would have shown.
Multivitamins are mostly packed with stuff you don't need and aren't deficient in, even if all you eat is junk food all day.
source? (Score:5, Interesting)
at first read this seems counter to everything I've experienced..."highly fortified....for almost a hundred years"???
i know some products advertise that they have vitamins & some regulation took place, but those regulations were always fought by the industry as "government intervention that costs consumers"
also, i'm more skeptical of a Pepsi that says it has vitimin C that will help me than I am of a multivitamin
Re:source? (Score:5, Informative)
Salt is iodized.
Folic acid is added to bread, cereals, flour, etc.
Vitamin C is added to juice, along with most other things marketed to kids.
Niacin is added to bread.
Vitamin D and calcium are added to milk and other dairy products.
Cereals (especially sugary ones marketed to kids) are usually fortified with a dozen vitamins and minerals.
You probably won't end up with a vitamin deficiency from eating junk food so long as you don't eat the same few junk foods exclusively. What you'll end up with is a diet with way too much of the wrong stuff.
Re:source? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Except that vitamins are just 'fortifying' a unhealthy diet. What difference does it make if the vitamin is in the junk food or the pill?"
But that's kind of GP's point.
This study was done on people with "no nutritional deficiencies". Yet vitamins are intended as supplements for people with nutritional deficiencies. As such, this study doesn't really show what it appears to be showing.
I mean, it's like studying the eficacy of a smallpox vaccine on a population that is never exposed to smallpox. Guess what? It's going to show no significant benefit, and even maybe a little bit of harm.
Seriously, this looks like a good candidate paper for the Journal of Irreproducible Results. That is to say: like other papers they've published, it might be valid science, but who cares?
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> I mean, it's like studying the efficacy of a smallpox vaccine on a population that is never exposed to smallpox
> it might be valid science, but who cares?
Uggg. Did you stop to think even a *little* bit about your line of argument? Here, let me demonstrate how bad it is
There is ample evidence that cyclophosphamide can cure cancer. In people without cancer, obviously it doesn't cure their cancer.
There is also ample evidence that it causes acute myeloid leukaemia, bladder cancer, hemorrhagic cystitis,
Re:source? (Score:4, Insightful)
"There is some evidence that taking vitamins causes several health problems, including increasing risk of cancer in certain cases."
[Emphasis mine.]
Yes. And the vast majority of the evidence you refer to applies to taking LARGE DOSES of vitamins, not the amounts in the daily supplements being discussed here, jerk.
Did YOU think much about YOUR argument? Do you know what a straw-man is? Because that's what you did.
Re:source? (Score:5, Informative)
There is ample evidence that cyclophosphamide can cure cancer
You, sir, are AN IDIOT.
Cyclophosphamide doesn't CURE anything, period.
Not true. Cyclophosphamide is used (as part of a treatment protocol) for acute lymphocytic leukemia. Childhood ALL has cure rates of ~ 95%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_lymphocytic_leukemia#Treatment [wikipedia.org]
And here was I thinking that people on slashdot would know that (to date) the only thing that 'cures' you of cancer (and, I might add, a variety of other spectacularly nasty diseases) is death.
Not true. There are curable cancers. There was a small number of them, and the number is growing. The calculation of the cure rate depends on how you define cancer, early-stage cancer, and pre-cancer. But among the major cancers, early stage colon cancer is curable.
The usual definition of "cure" for cancer is that it will not return in your lifetime. If you're 75 years old, and the cancer won't come back for 20 years, and you die of something else, most people define that as cure. If you're male, you probably have prostate cancer, and that probably won't kill you either in your lifetime.
What is it about the Internet that makes people say, "You're an IDIOT!" when they hear something they don't agree with? Even when the person you're calling an idiot knows more about the subject than you do?
Re:source? (Score:5, Informative)
This study was done on people with "no nutritional deficiencies". Yet vitamins are intended as supplements for people with nutritional deficiencies. As such, this study doesn't really show what it appears to be showing.
Vitamin deficiency diseases are generally third-world diseases. The population of the U.S. has very little vitamin deficiency. It's not as if doctors see scurvey or rickets when they go out into the community.
When Americans do have vitamin deficiency, it's usually because of a disease, hereditary or acquired. For example, alcoholics get vitamin B deficiency.
The New England Journal of Medicine had a case of rickets a few years ago, and the patient was a mentally retarded child who ate a diet entirely of Pop-Tarts.
Here's another one http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMicm1205540 [nejm.org] -- from the Ukraine. "In addition to a diet poor in vitamin D and calcium, the patient had a history of biliary dyskinesia, which may have contributed to poor absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamin D."
Here's another one http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcp1113996 [nejm.org] Autoimmune gastritis (pernicious anemia) is the most common cause of severe [vitamin B12] deficiency.
One major cause of vitamin deficiency is people on fad diets. The macrobiotic diet was one of the worst for that. Sometimes people couldn't follow the macrobiotic diet themselves, but they had an infant that they kept on a "strict" macrobiotic diet (by feeding them not much more than brown rice), and in a few cases the child died.
There are some stupid articles, like this one http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310306 [nih.gov] that simply measured vitamin D blood levels, without consideration of whether they actually had clinical disease that made any difference to the patient's health. (It's like finding an elevated PSA or a lung spot that will never develop into cancer.) If you don't know how to read a journal article, you might misinterpret this to mean that there was a lot of vitamin D deficiency. But I can't find any studies that show clinical vitamin deficiency in Americans without specific diseases, since America was industrialized during WWII.
Here's an article by people who do understand the complexity of the problem http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcp1009570 [nejm.org] and here's what they say:
Randomized, controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation have addressed its effects on skeletal outcomes, but most of these trials involved supplementation with both vitamin D and calcium, making it impossible to separate out the effects attributable specifically to vitamin D.
I just spent half an hour trying to find an article in a peer-reviewed journal that describes vitamin deficiency in a population in the U.S. where the deficiency isn't the result of a serious disease, and I can't find one.
The only time Americans need vitamin supplements is when they're diagnosed with a specific disease that causes a specific deficiency. In that case, they should get treated with vitamins under the supervision of an MD. You have to find out the cause of the deficiency and treat it. Otherwise you could die. This isn't the kind of thing you can self-treat with Google searches.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Don't get me started about all of the dihydrogen monoxide chemical additives in food these days. I mean, some places even sell it in bottles!
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:4, Insightful)
Quite. There are still going to be some vitamins missing from the fortification regimen.
There is a clear quantifiable disconnect here. Either the dietary recommendations for vitamins (and minerals) is a nothing but bullsh*t or this study is.
The average diet is likely to be deficient according to government guidelines.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Informative)
Try this...
Try dedicating some Sundays, to cooking...do it for the week. I often cook 2-3 main dishes, maybe 2-3 sides...or one thing I like, is to grill a bunch of stuff, meats, veggies and just bag them. Then during the week, you can put them together in quick and interesting ways for lunches and dinners all week long.
Say you make up some hummus, and grill some veggies (eggplant, zucchini, onions, etc) and some chicken. A quick week night meal, is get some pita bread, spread on some hummus, and the veggies and chicken and there ya go. Next night, make a quick salad, throw in grilled, marinated veggies and whatever..etc. Doing stuff like that works well and make for easy throw together meals all week long (and lunches). I'd much rather do this than eat fast food, eat better, and with the money you save, treat yourself out every once in awhile to a finer dining experience, and get out and meet some girls. Do this...and then cook for them at your home, etc. All pluses!!
But I digress....cooking and eating this way cheaper and more nutritional, and hey..is kinda fun to spend a sunday with a couple of cocktails, throw on some tunes or some TV in the background and cook a bit.
One thing you might try too, is check the grocery store ads in your town, and see what's on sale and plan to cook around that. This way, you save money AND, most importantly, it keeps you from getting in a rut of cooking and eating the same thing day after day after day....
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From time to time I get out my slow cooker, and make up a batch of stew, or split pea soup, but mostly I just couldn't be bothered.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:4, Funny)
Ah. Living alone with multivitamins it is, then.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Funny)
You can use pills to get girls into bed with you - but you generally have to crush them up so they're not noticed.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:4, Insightful)
The study isn't saying people didn't feel better. Just that it didn't help any more than a placebo. So you need to have a neighbor or someone administer them blindly and mix in fake pills and see if you notice a difference.
Also, if multivitamins helped, imagine how you would feel doing something with a ton of positive peer reviewed data backing it up, like eating a well balanced diet.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really mean to life-coach you or anything but the benefits you will reap from learning how to cook and cooking your own meals is enormous. Not only will you be healthier, but you will meet eligible mates at the grocery store; and you will find yourself more interesting to potential mates if you can invite them over and make an absolutely amazing meal... My dad taught me how to cook and I'm now the creative cook in the family... My son has been helping to cook since he was 8 and now that he's 12, he is in charge of one meal every week. He makes things like schnitzel, pork roast, chilli, lasagna, stroganoff, etc...
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Funny)
SHHHH! Case closed! Stop asking questions.
PfizerLillyBristolSquibb (Score:2)
Now I see why someone would want to fund this research...it increases revenue for Big Pharma.
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Oh, yeah in those cases they are helpful. Or in cases where people's habits leave certain vitamins and minerals out. But never mind that. Just pay attention to my edgy new study and talk-show appearances.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, yeah in those cases they are helpful. Or in cases where people's habits leave certain vitamins and minerals out. But never mind that. Just pay attention to my edgy new study and talk-show appearances.
As is frequently the case, the article is misleading and misinterpreting the scientists.
Also just like /. tends to do, the linked news article headline is sensationalized and exists just to get people to read the story.
The scientists talk about three specific things: (1) Preventing chronic disease, including heart disease and cancer, (2) preventing cognitive decline in seniors, and (3) high-dose pills to prevent subsequent events after a confirmed heart attack.
For those three specific things, multiple studies show they do not provide statistically significant benefits. They found that high doses of specific nutrients could slightly increase the risk of certain cancers in people pre-disposed to them, which is why they recommended against the multivitamins for those in good health.
Note that also in TFA they agree that there are some health benefits in specific cases. These include vitamin D in the elderly for bone strength, iron and folic acid for pregnant and nursing mothers (and in unrelated studies elsewhere, also in men wanting children), those with poor nutrition, and for other specific situations.
Note that the studies do not say multivitamins are worthless, nor does it address any other health areas except those three. That is just the headline sensationalism.
"chronic disease" (Score:3)
exactly
in TFA summary "chronic disease" jumped out at me...that's a pretty high bar for ***anything known to medical science*** to hit, and no one ever really claimed that multivitamins would just flat prevent cancer.
it seems like TFA wants to beg the question...but we can't let the researchers off the hook either...they *chose* the language and 3 categories
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'in TFA summary "chronic disease" jumped out at me...that's a pretty high bar for ***anything known to medical science*** to hit, and no one ever really claimed that multivitamins would just flat prevent cancer.'
Nuts.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24256379 [nih.gov]
"In two large, independent cohorts of nurses and other health professionals, the frequency of nut consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality, independently of other predictors of death. (Funded by the National Institut
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:4, Funny)
yeah, and those that don't get a balanced diet?
Reduce funding to supplimental assistance, call them lazy, imply that obesity and poor health is a moral failing, and that prayer is an effective medical treatment.
Duh... what are you, some kind of non-american? :/
It's the Prosperity Gospel (Score:2)
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. A $12 bottle of multivitamins every two months is a heck of a lot cheaper than fresh produce. And when you're on a disability budget, there is no where near enough money for a "healthy" diet.
Hell, I ate better in university than I do nowadays.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Insightful)
You're saying that as if the two are in any way equivalent.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, no, they aren't equivalent but they can, for example, be the difference between general good health and having your teeth rocking in their sockets from scurvy if you can't afford the produce. Vitamin C is also important for connective tissue repair, which means that if you do hard manual labor, a supplement can produce a huge difference in your day-to-day quality of life for a whole lot less money than the produce.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really. Vitamin absorption is a complicated topic.
For example, in the case of just calcium:
* Phytic acid (whole grain cereals) inhibits uptake
* Long chain fatty acids (animal fats, including butter) inhibit uptake
* Vitamin C promotes uptake
* Vitamin D promotes uptake
* Protein promotes uptake
Now calcium-fortified cow's milk is very interesting. Because of the need to buffer animal protein with an alkaline buffer during digestion, drinking milk -- including calcium-fortified milk -- tends to actually remove calcium from the body. This is not the case for human milk because the calcium/protein ratio is different, but if you need to supplement calcium, consuming cow's milk is not a good method.
On the other hand, regarding iron:
* Calcium (and zinc, eggs, tea, coffee) inhibit uptake
* Vegetable protein inhibits uptake
* Vitamin C promotes uptake (same as with calcium)
* Copper promotes uptake
Iron is divided into two types: haem (from hemoglobin, i.e. animals) and non-haem. Haem iron is considerably easier for the body to absorb, but if you supplement non-haem iron with vitamin C, you get a very similar absorption rate as haem iron without vitamin C.
Nutrition is a very complicated topic. Every nutrient is different.
It seems that eating a balanced diet (including animal protein but not much animal protein) is actually a pretty good way to obtain most of the vitamins and minerals you need. If you need to supplement, you should definitely look up what factors promote or inhibit absorption.
Yes, many multivitamins contain non-digestible forms of vitamins. My favorites are iron oxide (rust) and calcium carbonate. Those are essentially non-absorbable forms of those minerals. Cheap vitamins have iron oxide and calcium carbonate. Expensive vitamins (sometimes, occasionally) have better forms. Generall, minerals in the form of an ionic salt are barely usable by the body.
I am unaware of the body becoming lazy with regards to absorbing vitamins, so I can't comment on that. However, it is a good idea to stop taking all vitamins at least once a week. If there is a "memory effect", this will help to reset things so the body does not become acclimatized/insular to a certain nutritional profile.
It is better to consume low doses of vitamins over a long period of time, than to sporadically consume large quantities. If I only ate fresh produce one week out of 3, I would consume a multivitamin over the course of the second two weeks.
It is a good idea to mix up multivitamins. Not all are the same, and your body's nutritional needs change over time. Semi-regular changes in multivitamin formulas can help satisfy any low-level deficiencies that might otherwise accumulate.
That is the philosophy I generally follow with multivitamins. I encourage you to read and learn as much as you can. The topic is immense. There is an unfortunate amount of bullshit in the field, but there is also plenty of good research.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow....where do you live where junk food is cheaper than healthy, home cooked veggies, etc?
I cook most everything at home, and I've done it for awhile, even on very restricted budgets. But you have to buy raw ingredients (not preprocessed) and cut and cook them yourself.
Start by seeing what is on sale at the various grocery stores each week, and build your menu around those. I often hit 2-4 stores each week buying the sale items and going from there.
Buy what veggies and fruits are in season, those are usually the cheapest and best for you.
Doing things like that, can really help you eat healthier and cheaper than dining on preprocessed crap which will kill you in the long run. Also, find the days on which they mark down meats for quick sale, that's a good one. Hell, one time in college, studying for finals, I took a break to cook a late night snack...while a friend was coming over.
He came over with a pizza, and I was eating veal chops in a champagne cream sauce, and my meal cost far less than his....
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Insightful)
They're conflating "cheaper" with "requires not being lazy."
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On those weeks, I never wash the crock pot. I just restock it with more beans, rice, and spices and let it keep cooking.
Even faster than McDonalds, and probably half the cost.
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$150 a month has to cover stuff like deodorant, razor blades, shaving cream, toothpaste, mouth wash, and food. That's $5/day, not $4/meal as one of the posters higher up had commented about McTesticles. And realistically, the food budget works out to about $120 after those "incidentals", leaving $4/day.
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Informative)
There is no such thing as equal availability of food in the US. Please read up on the Supermarket Gap [wikipedia.org] and how it affects the diets of the urban poor and minority areas:
Studies show that cost is the most significant predictor of dietary choices, so healthy eating is especially difficult for the poor, for whom healthier foods are generally unaffordable.[4] Meanwhile, supermarkets generally provide food at cheaper prices than the bodegas and pharmacies that service inner-city areas. A study that compared supermarkets, neighborhood groceries, convenience stores, and health food stores in San Diego, California found that supermarkets had twice the average number of 'heart-healthy' foods compared to neighborhood grocery stores and four times the average number of such foods compared to convenience stores.[5] In many American cities, an urban grocery gap has caused a lack of access to healthy foods, high prices for the healthy foods that are available, and the health problems that result from an unhealthy diet.
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Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Informative)
"Wow....where do you live where junk food is cheaper than healthy, home cooked veggies, etc?"
the united states.
A meal of fresh fruits and veggies plus protien = $4.50
A meal of Ramen noodles = $0.39
A meal of a hot dog cut up in the mac and cheese = $1.20
nearly 40% of Americans cant even afford the luxury meal of the hot dog in mac and cheese.
I am guessing you have zero idea as to what reality is for the bulk of the population, over 50% of your fellow Americans can not afford to eat healthy and a balanced diet.
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I get that poverty in the US is an epidemic, but your 40% and 50% figures seem very inflated. Citation, please?
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you get $4.50 ?
1 apple = 75c at Trader Joe's, 50c at local second-rate produce stall
4oz lentils (protein) = 22c at Amazon
1lb other seasonal veg = 75c
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Healthy foods are not cheaper. You can get a full meal from mcdonalds for under $4.
That can live in the fridge for weeks and never go bad. Spend the same $4 on fresh foods and they will go bad in days
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If you substitute a salad for the fries & milk for the drink, it's within shooting distance of healthy.
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Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:4, Informative)
Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults (Score:5, Informative)
If you buy things that are on sale and in season, you can easily make meals that are in the $4 per meal and much better for you than McD's.
Hell, buy a bag of dried beans, onion, meat, etc....make a pot of chili that you can eat on for 5+ meals and it is in that range.
Make a big salad, and grill some chicken that was on sale...you can get several meals out of that for that price range, and is much healthier for you.
And no, it doesn't go bad in a day or two. Buy what's on sale each week and work from there.
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Spend the same $4 on fresh foods and they will go bad in days
That's not true at all. Modern science, man. Among other things, I bought a bag of apples for the UFC fight just over a month ago, when GSP fought. I put them in one of the fancy yellow produce saving bags that grocery stores have now. I forgot they were in my fridge and went to eat one last weekend, expecting it to be soft and gross. It might as well have just come off the tree, as crisp and juicy as when I bought it.
It's true that McDonald's food can "live" in the fridge for a suspiciously long time
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> Spend the same $4 on fresh foods and they will go bad in days
Not a problem. Eat it in days.
I can buy the most expensive deli meats and organic buns and still come out ahead of McDonalds and Subway. Never mind the more mundane stuff and "real food".
It's a RESTAURANT. It has a 5x margin by it's very nature. It has to. Otherwise it could not possibly stay in business.
A 5x margin is easy to beat.
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If I spent $4 for every meal, I'd be going over my monthly food budget by more than 3x.
Eating healthy is cheap. It just requires a bit of time and effort to actually prepare.
Re: supplementing the diet of well-nourished adult (Score:5, Insightful)
Time and effort is not free
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Yes, especially that many modern "diets" are anything but balanced.
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Yes, be the point is that those that eat healthy don't need multi-vitamins, and people that do need more balanced diets aren't buying them. So they service a market that doesn't exist.
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I bet the news of this study causes more harm than good. The takeaway many will have is that multi vitamins don't help anyone. When they clearly serve a purpose for those stuck on the fast food treadmill
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Well, in that case, kind of a moot point.
If you're "stuck on the fast food treadmill", you've got bigger health problems ahead that no amount of vitamin supplements are going to help with....
childhood diseases, procedure biased the sample (Score:2)
I am of two minds on this...
Even though the US diet isn't that great many of the diseases that were fairly common during the depression era are no longer that common. My dad knew of many kids that had rickets, and I have never known, or even heard of, a modern case.
I think, however, that many of the people that are taking vitamins, or even think that they are taking them (e.g. the placebo vs vitamin study) may become a little more health conscience and make it a point to eat their veggies.
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...which is probably everyone.
I can't imagine that everyone here in the peanut gallery doesn't have some sort of vitamin deficiency. Let's go with Vitamin-E for starters. Do you know if you get enough? Would you know what to eat to get more?
More than anything, this makes it sound like the RDA numbers are a fiction.
Extra vitamins don't help? Then whatever bad diets we all eat must be all hunky dory then...
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Sure as heck multivitamins will help if you're on a ramen diet, you don't get any water-soluble vitamins from that, only a tiny bit of stuff that's naturally dissolved in chicken fat (or beef fat)! The flavor and the salt should be in split sections of the pouch. I really don't need the salt, nor do most other people.
When I was on a ramen diet (by default, not by choice), I'd get a chicken thigh every once in a while and boil the heck out of it in a small pot with minimum amount of water. I tossed the bones
"Well Nourished" (Score:5, Insightful)
No kidding.. but for those that are not, ( which is a LOT of people.. ) vitamins can help.
Re:"Well Nourished" (Score:5, Insightful)
exactly.
The qualifier is stupid. If you are well nourished you don't need to supplement anything. But if you aren't lucky enough to be able to have the time to prepare your own perfect meal every day, then you may need something.
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These were enormous, decade-long studies. The qualifier is perhaps a poor description -- vitamins offer no benefits outside specific, diagnosed vitamin deficiencies. So unless you think every one of the 100,000 nurses ate properly, yes, they are indeed saying your McDonald's and hot dog and macaroni and cheese diet is fine (vitamin-wise).
No differences in disease onset betweem the two groups, ergo useless. This is also how they fpund out silicone breast implants were actually safe, in spite of fraudulent
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Perhaps a little. Any positive effect is far outweighed by the negative effect of too much fat, sugar, sodium etc that is in a typical bad diet. Trying to fix it with a multi vitamin is just delusional thinking.
not my Flintstones! (Score:3)
terrible title (Score:4, Informative)
Not slashdot's fault, this time. The real conclusion is that multivitamins don't cure heart disease. But who takes them to cure heart disease?
My rock might be useless at keeping tigers away but it's useful for throwing at glass houses.
Re: But who takes them to cure heart disease? (Score:2, Funny)
I take 'em to prevent scurvy. Arghhh!
The best way to make a choice about supplements (Score:5, Informative)
In my opinion, the best way to make an informed choice about supplements is to have your doctor do blood work when you get a physical exam (which you should be doing yearly once you hit middle age). Labs can test for key things like iron, B vitamins, vitamin D, etc.
Your doctor can then ask you questions to help interpret the results. If your D is low, do you get a lot of sunlight or do you spend most of your time indoors? If your iron is low, do you feel tired or mostly energetic? What sorts of things do you eat?
Based on that personalized information, supplements or other dietary/lifestyle changes can improve your health, certainly far more than grabbing a random bottle of multivitamins at GNC.
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Exactly! Well deserved +5 on this. I started getting blood tests when I hit thirty and made a few adjustments to my supplements and diet. I was having serious muscle spasms / cramps that I thought was related to sciatica. It turned out being a magnesium deficiency. I suffered for almost two years with something that was solved after literally 48 hours of supplementation.
I was also iodine deficient due to our culture of "salt is bad". I had to supplement iodine and started salting some of my meals. A
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God, I wish it were that easy!
I suggest all reading try to do just that.. and get the run around and have to argue before the GP will even order the tests, and multiple trips to multiple medical offices, surrounded by sick people that seem to be at death's door, that don't bother to wash their hands or cover their mouths when they cough, only to find out a week later at another appointment you need to pay for out of your deductible, that half of what you wanted tested, wasn't.. Then argue with the PA about what you and the GP, who's out playing golf, agreed to have tested in the first place.
And so on and so forth.. etc. etc. etc.
Let me add a couple to your list of "common hassles".
1) The doctor doesn't trust the "walk-in" [anylabtest-merrimack.com] results you already paid for, tells you to go get the same results from the hospital and pay for a new appointment. The hospital and the practice have an arrangement...
2) The doctor or lab tech mistakenly puts down the wrong diagnostic code ("for treatment" code instead of "screening" code) or the insurance company mistakenly files the claim with the wrong code, so that the cost comes out of your deductible instea
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If you have the cold or flu... then by all means go to the doctor.
Please, no. Cold and flu are both viruses. No doctor can do a thing for you if you have a virus, other than give you the same advice you can get for free from your mother: rest and drink plenty of fluids. Americans really REALLY need to stop trying to get viral cures that do not exist. It wastes an immense amount of time and money every year, and it is contributing to the evolution of anti-bacterial resistant bacteria because doctors, in order to be perceived as having done something, will prescribe an
Re:The best way to make a choice about supplements (Score:4, Insightful)
If you wait until you feel sick, you may find out you waited too long. It does happen.
The problem isn't whether it's a good idea, the problem is whether it's a good value.
I agree with your sentiment 100%, but it works both ways: your doctor will ignore a serious condition, thinking that it's something more common until a crisis happens.
This has happened to me twice - the last time, I went to a doctor with symptoms specifically asking if I should refrain from going camping in the desert. He cleared me to go, and the ensuing incident was life-threatening and cost much more than it should have.
Did going to the doctor help? He specifically stated that my concerns were unfounded, because "that's really rare" - he actually said that. (Talking elliptically to keep my privacy.) I had to go to emergency services and my preventative trip to the doctor was wasted.
I get my vehicle diagnosed yearly, and have all problems fixed before they become critical. My mechanic will tell me what's wrong, show me the bad/broken part in situ, give a firm estimate for repair, and guarantee the result.
My doctor will give me an opinion ("try this, and see if it goes away").
His opinion is backed by nothing. If he's wrong, I can't even get the cost of the appointment back.
Precisely no surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
“... supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit...”
This is a great example of how a precise statement by a researcher is misinterpreted or misrepresented when presented to the general public. The above statement is a useful result with a well-defined meaning which is being used in a context that makes it sound like supplements have zero benefit. It's no surprise that that supplements have no clear benefit... when you are a "well-nourished adult'! The danger is that this result can cause people who are not well-nourished to stop taking supplements that may be keeping them outside of harm.
Writers looking to make a story where there isn't one cause much more harm than supplements ever could. (No facts were harmed in the making of that statement.)
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The danger is that this result can cause people who are not well-nourished to stop taking supplements that may be keeping them outside of harm.
Since this is /. here's a car analogy:
My car is pulling to the left, because the wheels aren't balanced, what do I do?
a) Add a spring to your steering column to push right by about the same amount the car is pulling to the left, to balance it out. (take pill supplements)
b) BALANCE YOUR FUCKING WHEELS YOU FUCKWIT (ie correct your diet)
If you have some genuine conditio
Targeted vitamins can help though (Score:3)
I also donate platelets regularly, and prior to a stint on the chair there I munch on some calcium chews, because otherwise I'll experience a total calcium crash from the citrate and pass out.
So while it's okay to stop wasting your money on multi-vitamins, it's important to know how your body responds to both long and short term situations and have the appropriate supplement on hand.
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For geeks who don't go outside and prefer the dungeon/basement lifestyle, a 1000 mg dose of Vitamin D daily can be a godsend.
You must mean 1000 IU of vitamin D. That is about a typical dose.
For vitamin D, 1 IU is the biological equivalent of 0.025 micro-grams cholecalciferol/ergocalciferol.
GM rice with Vitamin A (Score:2)
Golden rice is genetically modified to include Vitamin A. There are plenty of people dying from a lack of vitamins.
"The research was conducted with the goal of producing a fortified food to be grown and consumed in areas with a shortage of dietary vitamin A, a deficiency which is estimated to kill 670,000 children under the age of 5 each year"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice [wikipedia.org]
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> Spoken like someone who has plenty of options to eat.
Spoken like someone who takes pride in being a helpless ward of the state.
Between rice and carrots, carrots are remarkably simple to grow. If you have the soil and water for rice, carrots are no problem at all. They also store well.
If your fetish truely is Vitamin-A (and not just sucking Monsanto's dick) then you really can't beat carrots.
Carrots are like knowledge, a very small amount can go a long way.
Americans have most expensive pee in the world (Score:2)
"Case closed"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Though I've suspected the "multi-vitamins" myself for a while, I'm wary of any claims about "case closed" or "the science is settled"...
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I wouldn't say "just like", but there is certainly something similar...
Important details missing (Score:2, Informative)
Not all "vitamins" are equal. For one thing, Recommended Daily Allowances are set to prevent known diseases: e.g., if you don't have scurvy, establishment medicine says you must be getting enough vitamin C. Rarely is research done to discover an optimum level of supplementation. So studies that involve giving people the RDA or a little more aren't as dispositive as they might be.
Second, vitamins vary in quality. Cheapo supermarket multivitamins might have the same quantities listed on the label as something
Sure (Score:5, Funny)
"doctors behind three new studies ..."
Doctors? Who cares what doctors say, what does Jenny McCarthy say?
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It's even funnier to hear how this is supposedly some sort of big Pharma conspiracy. Big Pharma companies sell billions in vitamin supplements every year. So in fact big Pharma would be against someone saying that multivitamins don't provide any benefit.
Thanks for the opinion but.. (Score:2)
I would not care about such biased research in an actually free country where I can purchase and consume whatever vitamins and supplements I wish. But in a country on its way to government controlled medicine and with a powerful FDA this could doom me to "officially approved" opinions in this and other medical manners. I took the time to find a good longevity research group that did substantial over time blood work and other testing regarding recommended supllementation. The end experiential result is th
well nourished adults, eh? (Score:2)
Look around you if you are in the US. How many "well nourished adults" do you see? Well fed yes but that is not at all the same thing. Go to your average grocery story and count the number of isles and what percentage of them contain actual food, much less healthy food. People generally are not well nourished in the US. Also it is a known fact that various micro-nutrients, hormones, types of nutrient uptake and so on deteriorate as we age, starting about at a bit after 40 for most people. Note, the
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They didn't have a lot of food but what they had then wasn't grown on industrial agriculture but they could barely afford it and went without .. giving rice to rickets, scorbut and all those deficiency diseases. Now everything is grown on nutrient devoid soils and the meat is jacked up with hormones and antibiotics so we're still not off any better.
I don't even know where to start with how derpy this is.
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Why would big pharma be against multivitamins? One. A Day, Centrum, Flintstones , etc brands are all made by Big Pharma.
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now everything is grown on nutrient devoid soils
It doesn't matter all that much, since the plants, you know, synthesize stuff. If there isn't enough nitrogen in the soil, the yields will be poor, but it's not like you'll get nitrogen-deficient plants. They'll be plant-matter-deficient in general. So talking about "nutrient devoid soils" is quite pointless: it only affects the yields, not the nutritional value of the end product. There'll be less stuff, smaller bulbs or fruit, etc. At least that's my high-school understanding, plant biologists please cor
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You mean the same pharma fucks who produce all of those vitamins? It's in their best interest for you to continue buying and taking massive amounts of anti-oxidants. Those are the same anti-oxidants that neutralize the process of the immune system oxidizing dangerous cells, such as cancer.
Do they even define what well-nourished means? (Score:2)
Or is it really a tautology and well-nourished means eats enough food with vitamins?
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Tell that to hemophiliacs and menstruating women.
(On second thought, maybe you'd better not mention it to the women)
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Nope, big pharma is happy to sell you both. Centrum, One A Day, Flintstones, etc. are all big pharma brands.
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For 10 cents a day, I'll take the risk that I'm wasting my money. It's cheap insurance, and there might even be a benefit.
You might want to consider that there might be a significant risk of harm too. [jamanetwork.com]
Slight negative effect on lung cancer survival for high doses of Vitamin A. [nejm.org]
Increase risk of all-cause mortality for high doses of Vitamin E. [annals.org]
Significant increase in mortality from gastrointestinal cancers from high doses of antioxidants, A & E in particular. [sciencedirect.com]
Re:Don't waste your money on vitamins - (Score:4, Insightful)
Who do you think produces all those vitamins? The pharmaceutical industry reaps enormous profits from the production and sale of vitamins.