Posted on 12/18/2013 8:57:00 PM PST by artichokegrower
Q
uestions about the health benefits of vitamin supplements have been percolating in the medical establishment for decades — even as the multivitamin industry has grown to a multi-billion powerhouse in the U.S. This week, the respected journal the Annals of Internal Medicine put its well-heeled foot down.
"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," the journal said in an editorial. "These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough."
Here's Dr. Edgar Miller of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, one of the editorial's five co-authors: "What will protect you is if you spend the money on fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, low fat dairy, things like that," Miller tells CBS News. "Exercising would probably be a better use of the money." The only exceptions are folic acid for pregnant women and, possibly, vitamin D — the studies are mixed on its benefits and risks.
Assuming Miller and his colleagues are right — and they base their assertion on three large, recent studies — Americans have been wasting lots of money on vitamins. About half of U.S. adults take dietary supplements, and the vitamin industry has grown to $12 billion a year for vitamins alone and about $30 billion for all dietary supplements. That's just in the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
Doesn’t matter.
If I want to spend the money, that is my business.
Get organic vitamins that dissolve rapidly in water — send me a FReepmail for other info.
BTTT
It is all about removing the choices and options that should be available to free thinking people.
Very frightening times, these.
May God share His strength.
Tatt
Forty years ago there was a big push to restrict vitamins/minerals to over the counter drug rules. This would have cost consumers a lot more. I joined the big fight in which most conservatives and liberals were allied and we saved the availability of vitamins, etc.
Now I am 75, in excellent health, have never suffered the horrible varicose veins and surgery like my mother. Had begun to have the pain and vein development when I read Adelle Davis and began to use what she recommended. The pain and veins went away, I never needed the surgery my mother required. I cured my father’s severe allergy problem and helped other suffering people. After reading Davis’ “Let’s Have Healthy Children” I raised two boys. One had his only cavity at age 23, the other at age 40. Good diet can really make a difference, but since most have some problems, the right supplements can work wonders. It costs under $10 to try a bottle of tablets you think might help. If they do, great. If not, a Starbucks latte costs the same. Meanwhile, big Pharma and govt. keep your hands off my supplements and freedom to educate (an important step) myself about my own health and nutrition needs. So, study, learn, experiment, and keep what works.
This study was done by Pfizer so I’m skeptical.
I eat right, take vitamins to supplement, I’m 57, not on any meds.
If you feel like you need supplements, then take a good multi, but research your special problems and take additional to deal with them. For example: Winter depression - Vitamin D. Allergies - Vitamin C (personalized dose) 4 times a day, Pantothenic Acid, 200-300 mg per day. Morning sickness or motion sickness - B6 (25 mg or more, be careful if pregnant). Varicose veins - Vitamin E and Vitamin C (research dose). Back pain - Calcium and magnesium (2 to 1 ratio), and Boron 3 mg. if post menopausal. Use Google do research. Buy books on therapeutic nutrition. Study, learn, experiment.
What they’ve said....and I’ve read through their piece and additional studies....is that if you just ate a balanced diet...you’d get all the vitamins necessary. The ability of vitamins to translate over for ‘lost vitamins’ because you won’t eat a balanced diet? Marginal. It’s not working the way that everyone was convinced over the past forty years.
At the end of this whole mess, one needs to ask themselves where exactly they went off the road for eating a balanced diet. We used to be a society that took simple raw ingredients and made entire dinners from that...without processed sugar, great amounts of sodium, or high fat contents.
As I've been saying for the last 20 years, multi-vitamins are a scam designed to separate you from your money.
Thanks, my point exactly, and remember Dr. Stare, Harvard expert, sugar whore for big business.
My Full Agreement gleeaikin.
If supplements improve health, and Republicans want Obamacare to fail, then opposing supplements is logical and it makes big pharma contributors happy too.
Bingo!
FWIW, the article is based upon three different studies. The only one of the three that had problems with nonadherence and withdrawal was Oral High-Dose Multivitamins and Minerals After Myocardial Infarction: A Randomized Trial.
The other two, Long-Term Multivitamin Supplementation and Cognitive Function in Men: A Randomized Trial and Vitamin and Mineral Supplements in the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer: An Updated Systematic Evidence Review for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force did not have this same limitation.
Is this the same attitude that arrests farmers for selling unpasteurized milk? All of a sudden, these hobby farmers dairymen are enemy combatants or something. I used to be able to eat yogurt. I liked Dannon Blueberry, but not anymore. My body has rewired itself after being vegan for 5 years (no longer). I’m now lactose intolerant, so I don’t benefit directly, but I hate to see a small business owner being messed with by O’s GoonSquad.
Yea, for falling for industry backed medical schmucks. Don’t forget, they’ve pushed smokes and carbs historically, and backpedaled on those...
The science is all “settled” until it’s not.
Copied from an article
As noted by Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Americans easily take more than 60 billion doses of nutritional supplements every year, and with zero related deaths this is an outstanding safety record:
"Well over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. Even if each of those people took only one single tablet daily, that makes 165,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of over 60 billion doses annually. Since many persons take far more than just one single vitamin or mineral tablet, actual consumption is considerably higher, and the safety of nutritional supplements is all the more remarkable.
Over 60 billion doses of vitamin and mineral supplements per year in the USA, and not a single fatality. Not one. If vitamin and mineral supplements are allegedly so "dangerous," as the FDA and news media so often claim, then where are the bodies?"
In striking contrast, drugs are known to cause well over 125,000 deaths per year when taken correctly as prescribed – yet the FDA allows "fast-track" approvals and countless new additions to the marketplace. So why are dietary supplements on the chopping block?
I was one of those popping prescription pills one after another with the result of my health worsening as each one was added. I finally started doing my own research into alternative medicine. I began with Magnesium and it grew from there. There are amazing results to be gained by giving your body what it truly needs. Vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements are merely “food” for your body. I don’t do “cheap” though, I buy quality supplements made by reputable companies. You get what you pay for.
In my opinion, our so-called healthcare industry is managed death.
Wasn’t that stuff used to cut body fat, too? The clobbers and bodybuilders used to use it.
“Big Pharm is just going after the 30 billion dollar market and trying to use the FDA as there personal guild thugs.”
You got it. They have been trying to do this for years. Big Pharma wants to control the industry and take our freedom to purchase health supplements away.
The public had better wake up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.