Multivitamin researchers say "case is closed" after studies find no health benefits

Probably not worth it unless one is malnourished.

I do take one daily, however what worries me even more is that such supplements or "lifestyle drugs" are the least regulated of all pills and potions in most countries, and if Chinese-made fakes and duds have turned up as male potency, breast cancer and diabetes drugs that can potentially kill people in UK pharmacies, then one can just imagine the rubbish they put in some of these vitamin pills.

Sometimes one sees them standing in the sun for days in markets, and I have no guarantee where these things come from, even if the package looks very nice and professional.

Aleister
reply to post by Swills

 

The biggie of "vitamins" is C. Vitamin C is really ascorbic acid, and there isn't enough in multi-vitamins to make a difference. You have to supplement either by several 1000mg tablets a day or by the liquid form written about heavily here on ATS.

The thing these doctors or CBS News isn't telling you is that you have a major genetic disease. Our ability to make ascorbic acid in our bodies broke a long time ago, somewhere around the lemurs. All primates - monkeys and apes - can't make it in their bodies, although we are trying every moment (four of the five steps work, the other one is broken). But everyone else makes it in their bodies every second - fish and plants and birds and mammals and algae and seahorses and cats and on and on, every living thing you see makes Vitamin C within their body. Except for guinea pigs. For some reason guinea pigs broke too, just like us apes.

Vitamin C builds connective tissue, for one thing. Think about that. And all you have to do to "cure" your major genetic disease is to supplement large amounts of Vitamin C. And please don't keep this information to yourself, but pass it on. Thanks.

edit on 16-12-2013 by Aleister because: (no reason given)

Vitamin C has served me well today, I have been on my arse with a nasty cold and I decided to high dose some vit c. I took 12 grams within an hour, and went from being immobile to going out refilling my water bottles and doing some Christmas shopping. I was on the pot for an hour when I got home, but it was definitely worth it.

I take a multimineral tablet every day and it helps me breath better. I think the doctors may want more business.

If you take a multivitamin or multimineral tablet that contains a lot of calcium, the calcium causes the vitamin/mineral not to be uptaken well. Calcium should be taken separately. A little bit of calcium does not hurt but some have a lot of calcium in them.

I take a multivitamin about once a week. I get enough vitamins but am a little deficient on minerals, especially magnesium. If I drank beer, magnesium wouldn't be a problem. I take the magnesium seperately, the multivitamin and multimineral pills have little magnesium in them.

reply to post by Frank Dinkle

No, its not a coincidence although never underestimate the placebo effect or what it should be called:

The power of the mind.

But heres the main point:

“We believe that the case is closed -- supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults...

Thats absolutely correct. So long as adults are "well nourished", theres no need for multi-vitamins and minerals.

Do you know how many adults are "well nourished"? About 0%.

Seriously, the vast majority of Americans, not to mention the rest of the world, are starving for vitamins and minerals.

Some argue thats why Americans eat so much, because our bodies are starving, not for food, but for the vitamins and minerals which are supposed to be in our foods.

Fact is, our food and soil are so devoid of vitamins and minerals, that one would be a complete fool to stop taking supplements.

See what they did there? How they slipped in a key word which will be overlooked by most so that the propaganda network can proclaim that "vitamins and minerals are usless".

I'm sure this conclusion is heavily influenced politically and financially by those entities who wish to see us as sick as possible in the interest of profits. Not convincing testimony.

gladtobehere
reply to post by Frank Dinkle

 

No, its not a coincidence although never underestimate the placebo effect or what it should be called:

The power of the mind.

But heres the main point:

“We believe that the case is closed -- supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults...

Thats absolutely correct. So long as adults are "well nourished", theres no need for multi-vitamins and minerals.

Do you know how many adults are "well nourished"? About 0%.

Seriously, the vast majority of Americans, not to mention the rest of the world, are starving for vitamins and minerals.

Many argue thats why Americans eat so much, because our bodies are starving, not for food, but for the vitamins and minerals that are supposed to be in our foods.

Fact is, our food and soil are so devoid of vitamins and minerals, one would be a complete fool to stop taking supplements.

edit on 16-12-2013 by gladtobehere because: spacing

I agree. The corporate farming methods don't involve crop rotation like they used to. Minerals come from the ground, and they have to be replenished.

I've been told that the pill multivitamins are worthless because they're to hard to really digest, and aren't in the system long enough to get them out. I take a liquid multivitamin, easily digestable, and I feel really good about it. I don't trust our food supply, or the FDA.

reply to post by Swills


next move to make it illegal and then force an RX to get them.

reply to post by Swills


vitamins don't work.

I guess Viagra doesn't work either.

reply to post by Swills


Good thread, bumped. I need my C-Silver horse pill and cup of green goo every day.

Also a couple during the day of St. John's Wort assists in my restraint from pulling my own head off and wishing to frequently share with the AMA Document Comittee.
More academic flap, attempting to dictate what we are to put in our bodies again. Their BS force feeding is of itself enough to need regular counteraction.
Treat a symptom = create a profit center. Case closed.

Just wanted to chime in to say that the idea that "Big Pharma" wants to quash the vitamin/supplement market because they "don't profit off of it" is patently untrue. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Sanofi, Abbott Laboratories, Merck, Bayer, and Bristol-Myers Squibb are some of the largest pharmaceutical companies (by revenue) in the world, so naturally they're the kind of companies that people associate with the evil "Big Pharma." They also have something else in common: they all produce (or have produced) vitamins/supplements!

Centrum? Produced by Pfizer. Pfizer provided the multivitamins used in a large clinical trial (results were published in 2012) that concluded that daily multivitamin use was linked to a lowered cancer risk (source). The study's results were contested.

One-A-Day? Produced by Bayer.

The vitamin/supplement industry is huge - by some estimates, it produced about $32 billion in revenue in 2012 (source).

I bring this up not to advocate for or against vitamins/supplements or the companies that make them, but in an attempt to show that the world is not nearly as black and white as some people would like to think.

In 30+ years of typing up medical histories, I have NEVER, NEVER, EVER, had a doctor dictate that he asked a patient what their diet was.

Think about that. No documentation ever of a critical component of a patient's health care, their diet, not even in diabetics.

The truth is, all docs think everybody eats just like them, unless the patient is an obvious heavy drinker or something. They think everyone has the same tastes, and pocketbook, and maybe a loving wife at home cooking dinner every night (for all the guys out of residency and now firmly established in money-ville).

Learn how to read those medical studies, and you'll always find the caveat that makes them so simplistic as to be useless; in this it was "well nourished"; because of course if you've got plenty of vitamins in your food, the extra won't do much.

Somebody made two year's pay and got their Master's or Ph.D with that little buncha bogus-ness.

I second the info about Vitamin C, it's amazing stuff and nobody gets enough anymore without supplementation unless you're eating a diet very high in LOCAL fruits (time spent in shipping lowers it), local veggies, and especially peppers and curries.

We evolved eating raw meat that was saturated with Vitamin C from the prey's own system. It's only really been lately that we cook everything so much. Cooking destroys C.

Also, Mendel, the plant geneticist, spent a lot of his lifetime breeding the 'bitter' out of fruits and vegetables. Turns out the 'bitter' was Vitamin B17, or Laetrile, which you need to fight cancer. Don't tell the ACS, they think B17 is poisonous even though it's in over 1200 common fruits and vegetables; just not as much as there was 100 years ago because of this genetic tampering. Ask yourself when the cancer rates started spiking...when cooking the way gramma cooked ceased and everything became pre-packaged and mostly sweet.

I take a multivitamin once a week, because I am doing the Paleo diet. Just in case I'm not getting enough nutriets. Taking a multi-tab once a day is excessive. You are literally "pissing" away your money.

Kratos

reply to post by halfoldman

Probably not worth it unless one is malnourished.

If one is malnourished taking vitamin pills is not going make one healthy.
It takes more than trace chemicals to provide health.

reply to post by Phage

I didn't mean to suggest that malnourishment can only be cured with multivitamins, so I entirely concur with your post.

Well here in Bulgaria and other Balkan countries we need supplements, because most people here have unhealthy diets that are heavy on fats.

I was taking a multivitamin for about a year and never noticed a difference but funny thing was as soon as I quit taking them I felt a hell of a lot better I even have more energy now.

Maybe I evolved to not need them or maybe the crap they put in those things is bad for you. It wasn’t a cheap type either as far as the reviews went it was supposed to be one of the better ones. The industry isn’t regulated well though so there is no way to know if what is says on the label is true or not.

Not a big deal really but they all seem pretty worthless to me. Oh I tried that vitamin C thing people made a big deal about on here for a while too it didn’t do squat for me except turn my pee florescent I think a lot of people are feeling the placebo on that one. Now I use the jewelry cleaning machine to clean my brass for reloads. Again no big deal.

reply to post by kiko83bg

Taking vitamins does not cancel the effects of a diet high in fats.

reply to post by Grimpachi


Two years ago my doctor (who's specialty is hematology) told me I was B12 deficient. For some reason my bod doesn't do a good job of extracting it from the food I eat (most of which has an abundance of B12).

I've been taking a daily B12 supplement since then. I don't feel any different but the potential long term neurological effects of the deficiency are pretty grim. So, I take a pill in the morning and piss away most of it during the day. But sure enough, my B12 level has been reasonable.

Take all the vitamins you want. Just be aware that, unless you have a poor diet or a problem metabolizing them, you're pissing them away.

reply to post by Phage


I think the next time I see the doc I will ask to get my blood tested to see if I am deficient in any vitamins or minerals only if the test comes back saying my system is off will I start taking them again and only the ones I need.

Phage
reply to post by kiko83bg

 

Taking vitamins does not cancel the effects of a diet high in fats.

I know. Lowering fats is what is really needed and eating more fresh and raw vegetables and fruits. Also, less pork and beef and more fish and poultry. Yet, people still buy vitamins in droves over here instead of changing their diets. I guess they like their moussakas et al. too much.