Is vitamin supplementation a scam?
Question by Aristo: Is vitamin supplementation a scam?
Reader’s Digest did published an article- calling vitamin supplements a scam and said that taking them is a waste of money. It cited a study of 160,000 mid-life women that showed no difference in health with respect to the big diseases like cancer, heart disease and stroke, from taking a multivitamin. But as with all studies, you need to dig deeper. In this case, because not all vitamins are created equal.
(I do strongly suspect a magazine whose advertising is largely from Big Pharma companies saying – vitamins are worthless).
The article challenges the benefits of certain individual supplements, such as vitamins A or E, which will likely have little effect when taken in isolation without proper co-factors. Vitamin D3 can stand on its own, but most other vitamins need to be taken together as part of a complete nutritional package.
We have to take a whole food multivitamins and a whole food raw green powders, together with whole food and plant-based diet because the truth is dim. It is very difficult to get the nutrients we need from our modern food supply. These days, to offset the bad fats and processed food sugars we consume and to restore balance within our bodies, we need more raw vegetables than ever.
The problem is that our fresh food supply is not as vitamin rich as it used to be. Soil has been depleted of nutrients, food is sprayed with chemicals and pesticides. Not forgetting the GMF to harvest a bigger yield or to resist disease, and transportation of hundreds or thousands of miles to get the food to our tables.
For the products to survive that trip, still looking fresh and beautiful and without bruising, it is heavily sprayed with chemicals and picked before it’s ripe and allowed to mature along the way. Once the fruit leaves the vine, that is the death of it. It doesn’t get the sun and the nutrients any longer, so it does not fully develop the enzymes and phytonutrients that are usually present in mature fresh picked local produce. Studies estimate more than 50% of nutrient value is lost in the journey from farm to table.
Now we back to the use of vitamin supplements which are typically comprised of man-made synthetic compounds.
Because synthetic vitamins are created in a lab to simulate the real thing, they are often not identical in the way they interact with or are absorbed by the body. They are often missing minerals, nutrients and other requisite co-factors for assimilation. In addition, they often contain cheap fillers and binders from ingredients like sand and titanium dioxide, Di-basic calcium phosphate and micro-crystalline cellulose, they are ingredients that our bodies cannot absorb and that may even be harmful to us. Many common over-the-counter vitamins are passed through the stool whole and intact.
The Pharma made and so well advertised “Centrum” is famous for this!!! What a joke.
Taking a multivitamin that includes a broad spectrum of vitamins, minerals and nutrients can make a difference, but only if it is bio-available and bio-absorbable. In other words, your body can actually break down and absorb the nutrients. That is not possible with synthetic vitamins.
Interestingly the Readers Digest article’s main argument against taking multivitamins said, “These days, you’re extremely unlikely to be deficient if you eat an average America diet, if only because many packaged foods are vitamin enriched.”
Think about that for a minute and tell me – Are they right? What is Your opinion?
I thought you are a scientist Garry, but OK, if you can’t find it yourself – here it is.
http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/5-vitamin-truths-and-lies/article175625.html
Best answer:
What do you think? Answer below!
