Posted on 05/18/2006 1:16:49 AM PDT by neverdem
AP MEDICAL WRITER
WASHINGTON -- Over half of U.S. adults use multivitamins, mostly the pretty healthy people who also eat nutrient-fortified foods. Yet there's little evidence that most of the pills do any good - and concern that some people may even get a risky vitamin overload, advisers to the government said Wednesday.
Worried about bottles that promise 53 times the recommended daily consumption of certain nutrients, specialists convened by the National Institutes of Health called Wednesday for strengthened federal oversight of the $23 billion dietary supplement industry - especially efforts to pin down side effects.
For the average healthy American, there's simply not enough evidence to tell if taking vitamins is a good or bad idea, said Dr. J. Michael McGinnis of the Institute of Medicine, who led the NIH panel's review.
"We don't know a great deal," he said, calling for more rigorous research.
Moreover, McGinnis added, "The product with which we're dealing is virtually unregulated," meaning there are even questions about how the bottles' labels convey what's really inside.
Vitamins and minerals, often packaged together, are the most-used dietary supplements, and widely assumed to be safe. After all, vitamins naturally occur in some of the healthiest foods, and vitamin deficiencies have been known to be dangerous since scurvy's link to a lack of fruits and vegetables was discovered centuries ago.
Ironically, the NIH panel concluded, the people most likely to have nutrient deficiencies are the least likely to use multivitamins.
Yet among the generally healthy and affluent, use of vitamin supplements - along with fortification of foods with extra vitamins - has skyrocketed in recent years as scientists speculated that high doses of certain nutrients might prevent cancer or other diseases.
That's where safety questions arise, because too much of certain nutrients can be bad.
There are only a few proven disease-preventing supplements, the NIH panel concluded:
-Women of childbearing age should take folic acid supplements to prevent spina bifida and related birth defects.
-Calcium and vitamin D together protect the bones of postmenopausal women.
-Antioxidants and zinc may slow the worsening of the blinding disease called age-related macular degeneration.
On the other hand, smokers should avoid taking beta-carotene supplements, because the pills can increase their risk of lung cancer, the report stresses.
For other vitamins, concern arises mainly with super doses that exceed the government's "recommended daily amount," or RDA. Between 1 percent and 11 percent of supplement users may be exceeding the upper limits set for certain nutrients, if they add together their doses from pills and their diets, said Cornell University nutritionist Patsy Brannon.
Leading her list: Too much niacin can damage the liver. Among other examples, too much vitamin A can cause birth defects, and too much vitamin E can cause bleeding problems.
Aghast at the super-doses on some bottles, panelist William Vaughan of Consumer's Union asked, "Why would I take 53 times what people tell me is the RDA?"
If you choose to take vitamins, use those labeled with 100 percent of the RDA or "daily value," advised Brannon. Together with a good diet, that would provide most people plenty without getting near the upper limit.
Some vitamins also can interact dangerously with medications, and doctors should ask their patients what they take, the panel said.
Congress limited the Food and Drug Administration's oversight of vitamins and other dietary supplements in 1994. Unlike most medications, most supplements sold today never had to be proven safe, much less proven to bring any health benefit.
The NIH panel marks the fourth scientific report in recent years urging more FDA authority over supplements, urging the agency to, among other things, mandate that manufacturers report customer side effects just like medication makers do.
Legislation that would do that has languished in Congress since 2004; the industry's Council for Responsible Nutrition said Wednesday it supported that call.
But "for millions of Americans who struggle with diet and nutrition, a daily multivitamin provides a safe, affordable, and reliable means of filling nutrition gaps and promoting overall good health," added council president Steven Mister.
On the Net:
National Institutes of Health: http://www.nih.gov
Consumer's Union: http://www.consumersunion.org
Food and Drug Administration: http://www.fda.gov
Council for Responsible Nutrition: http://www.crnusa.org/
Here we go, nanny state. They've already banned most supplements in Europe.
Good lord! "Some of the healthiest foods"?! Are all journalists this stupid?
Bacon Cheeseburger with L & T, washed down with a Guinness. The complete meal. Nothing better for you!
Vitamins and minerals, often packaged together, are the most-used dietary supplements, and widely assumed to be safe.
Is this because over half of the US adults are using them and we're not seeing problems?
The Fair Play for Rickets and Scurvy Committee.
So, should I quit taking the B-Complex vitamin supplement I use several times a week? Without them I get these ugly sores in the corners of my mouth and a tingling sensation in my lower legs. My doctor said they were from a vitamin deficiency.
Now to decide, believe my doctor and take something that works or believe these people that vitimins are not doing me any good and have ugly sores and tingly legs.
Decisions, decisions.
I would guess, because whatever is in the suppliment is not all that bioavailable
Probably not. The best way to take vitamins is to take the ones you need. Multivitamins are generally low quality anyway and have rust and other useless crap in them as others have pointed out. The thing to watch with any vitamin supplement is that often the overdose symptoms are the same as the overdose symptoms, so be careful not to do either.
That's the problem with trying to decide science by averages in committees using polls. It is up to each individual (and their doctor if applicable) to determine their nutritional needs and meet them. It is insane to let some government committee decide it for everyone or anyone.
Some people are deficient in some specific vitamins, and some (although probably fewer) are overdosing especially on minerals like iron and zinc that are cheaply thrown into multivitamins. The zinc in particular binds easily to transport mechanisms and prevents your body from absorbing other minerals particularly copper. My advice to anyone taking multivitamins is to stop, give your body a rest for a week and see how you feel. Then get back on them if you feel much worse, or try some specific vitamins instead. If you do go back on them, stay off for a few days every now and then.
Should be: overdose symptoms can be the same as underdose symptoms.
Puleeeeeeze people. . .get a LIFE!
If I go to the refrigerator and drink too much milk. . .I have just gotten 'risky milk overload'. . .and same with ANY food. . . or beverage - hot or cold, , ,not to mention 'alcoholic beverage'.
These wretched control freaks (Liberals) have got to be stopped!
My health is ultimately in MY genes. . .and MY hands and by MY decisions.
Well, they are Liberals. . .
Anyone aware of any studies that show health relationships between similar groups of people from pre-megasupplement times and today? I wouldn't be surprised to see a negative effect with the casual overuse that we have today.
Wow!! That was some reliable information I found on that there Internet. While I was at it I also found out that Bush actually blew up the WTC and it was a USAF missle and not American Airlines #77 that hit the Pentagon. (:^*)
Wasn't there a recent study saying people are living longer as a result of taking vitamins?
When are they going to raise the RDA for Vitamin C?
With most supplements being excreted through the kidneys, it's said Americans have the world's most expensive urine.
No, actually they're not. The stomach contains quite strong hydrochloric acid, which handles even "rust" quite nicely.
And, yes, you CAN overdose on "liquid minerals". It isn't the form (solid vs liquid), it't the amount ingested.
People don't get a balanced source of vitamins and minerals from their daily food intake. If scientist haven't been studying this, what the Hell have they been doing?
That is an awesomely bass-ackwards statement.
concern arises mainly with super doses that exceed the government's "recommended daily amount," or RDA.
Historically, sticking with the RDA has caused a great deal more harm than exceeding it. For decades, the RDA for folic acid was a tiny fraction of the current 400 mcg daily. As a direct results, thousands of babies were born with spina bifida (and a smaller number with anexncephaly) who didn't need to be. Never mind that popular nutrition writers had been advocating 400 mcg for years. I was 13 when a friend and I started reading Adele Davis' books, and started taking the doses she recommended of most available supplements. It was over 20 years later that the government finally came around on folic acid. There is now mounting scientific evidence that even larger doses may ideal, and that its benefits include delaying and/or lessening a variety of other ills, including Alzheimer's.
It's true, however, that the doses many people take of the cheapest B vitamins are ludicrously high. When you see B-complex supplements with labels like "Super B-50" or "Super B-100" and containing 50 or 100 mg each of several B vitamins, leave them on the shelf, or cut them into halves or quarters for your daily dose. You need about 5 mg of most of these, plus those supplements rarely contain even a fraction of the ideal amount of several of the more expensive B vitamins (e.g biotin, pantothenic acid, choline, inositol). And the several B vitamins that are always included in these pills in large quantities, are exactly the same ones with which everything from breakfast cereal to Twinkies is "fortified" -- they're dirt cheap, so food and supplement manufacturers dump them into their products liberally, and then make claims suggesting this is good for you.
Taking 3-15 pills a day as supplements doesn't necessarily mean taking excessive amounts of anything. Most multi-vitamin/mineral supplements contain a lot of the nutrients that you get plenty of in your diet and little or none of many others which you're not likely to get enough of in your diet. To remedy that, it's necessary to buy the individual supplements you need separately, rather than all combined into one pill. I'm in the 15 pills a day range, and get less of many nutrients than the average multi-vitamin/mineral pill contains, but get plenty of various other nutrients, which are selected with regard to my personal diet, and which are found in sub-par quantities, or not at all, in multi-vitamin/mineral supplements.
We would be better served if they addressed the Big Pharma stuff that doctors are loading onto Seniors in order to get trips to HAWAII.
Seniors are addicted to the side effects producing killer drugs.
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