Suppliments are wasted money
I know that suppliment takers all over the world will have issue with this one. Fortunately 1 in a million of them read my blog.
*sigh*
My intuition is that suppliments in all forms do nothing more than comfort your mind.
This is not to say that vitamins and minerals and various antioxidants do not help, but that the ONLY way they help is through whole food sources.
I am guilty of popping a vitamin C when Im sick. Know what I think of my own action?
I think that throwing a vitamin suppliment on top of the very eating habit that got you vulnerable to sickness to begin with is the same as ……. spraying rosewater on a wet dog to take the smell away.
Wont work, and you wasted good rosewater (money on the vit C).
People dont yet get that its the inert inactive materials in the plants that help the vitamins /minerals /antioxidants i.e. goodstuff to be absorbed. To function the way it was intended.
Enough preaching, here’s an article supporting my opinion:
Food Better Source of Nutrients Than Pills
Vitamins and minerals from food healthier than nutritional supplements
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Brunilda Nazario, MD
July 18, 2005 — Getting your daily dose of essential vitamins and minerals from the foods you eat is still better for you than taking nutritional supplements that promise to prevent disease, according to new research.
Researchers say the identification of individual nutrients in food that appeared to fight disease initially raised the possibility that people could optimize their health through nutritional supplementation.
But recent attempts to use this approach to prevent diseases such as heart disease and lung cancer with nutritional supplements containing vitamin E and beta-carotene have produced disappointing results. Health risks associated with taking too much of certain vitamins, such as high doses of vitamin A and D and minerals, have also emerged.
Instead, researchers say the most promising research in nutrition and preventing disease now relates to dietary patterns, not nutritional supplements.
“There are good data to suggest that certain dietary and lifestyle patterns are associated with decreased risk of chronic disease. However, providing nutrient supplementation to mimic these effects has failed to result in the efficacy that was initially anticipated,” write Alice H. Lichtenstein, DSc, and Robert M. Russell, MD, of Tufts University in the current issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Food Best Source of Vital Nutrients
In their report, they say strong research shows a relationship between certain dietary patterns and decreased disease risk, such as diets high in fruits, vegetables, and grains and heart disease.
However, rather than focusing on dietary patterns, most intervention studies have used high doses of a particular nutrient or cocktail of nutrients delivered through supplements in an attempt to fight disease.
Researchers say that for the most part the results of these nutritional supplement studies have been disappointing and cite several examples, including:
- Studies of vitamin E supplementation that failed to reduce heart disease risk.
- A series of studies showed that supplementation of beta-carotene, found in deeply colored fruits and vegetables, did not reduced the risk of lung cancer as had been hoped.
- Ongoing studies that show folic acid (found naturally in leafy greens as folate) supplementation does not reduce the risk of hardening of the arteries.
Meanwhile, health risks or potentially dangerous nutrient interactions associated with excessive supplementation of certain nutrients, such as vitamin E, calcium, and folic acid, have also become apparent.
“These findings suggest that science is not at a point at which researchers can identify with relative certainty the putative compounds that are driving the food-disease relationship,” write the researchers.
Therefore, with the exception of certain groups that can benefit from targeted nutritional supplementation, researchers say it’s still too soon to shift the focus from eating a well-balanced diet to meet people’s nutritional needs and promote optimum health to recommending nutritional supplements for the general public.
SOURCE: Lichtenstein, A. The Journal of the American Medical Association, July 20, 2005; vol 294: pp 351-358.
Hoodia Gordonii…
Hoodia Diet, does it really work?…
no it doesnt. just another scam my friend.
I think the thing is that supplements should be looked at as something that complements a healthy diet, not one that replaces it. There have been many supplements that have made an amazing difference in people’s lives. It’s all in the name, “supplement” you are supplementing what you are already doing, not replacing it.
I was diagnosed with a sleep disorder and literally went without sleep for many years, but melatonin came along and changed my life forever. It was literally like being reborn all over again. I remember the first night I actually fell asleep and stayed asleep for 8 hours. It was a miracle. A life without sleep versus one with sleep is like a nightmare vs. a dream come true.
There are many supplements out there that help with quirky things like that.
There are other supplements, such as Grape Seed Extract and forskolin, that are showing remarkable abilities to protect against skin cancer. Forskolin is actually helping the body produce melanin, (which is what a “tan” is) even in people with British Isles skin complexions, who totally lack the ability to get a protective tan.
I do think your article has it right though, the healthiest thing a person can do is to eat right, and that will solve many health problems and prevent others from occurring, especially in the long run.
Oh yeah one thing I forgot to mention about vitamins. There are so many unscrupulous companies out there now pimping vitamins. Multi-level marketing companies are now notorious for this. I have no idea why they all try to sell vitamins now.
I knew when multi-level scam artist Don Lapre got into it, with his World’s Greatest Vitamin, that this had gone too far. Most of the companies sell their products for higher than normal prices and also do the usual trying to lure people into the network thing. Or they try and pitch their product as somehow being more refined than other vitamins.
The thing is, most vitamins come from the same manufacturing handful of manufacturing plants. So there just isn’t that much variation between them. I’m sure some of them now have been outsourced to China, and well we know there are a number of safety issues recently. (Can’t blame the Chinese, it’s the American companies trying to cut corners and not doing proper quality control).
i appreciate the feedback derek.
i will probably always maintain that a healthy lifestyle will not warrent suppliments.most people that take suppliments are looking for ways around fixing their lifestyle.
i understand taking the melatonin helps, but a disorder that has gone on that long is suspicious. melatonin helps, but your just treating the symptom. am i correct here?