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Women and Supplements—Don’t Believe the Negative Hype

http://blog.drdavidwilliams.com/blog/digestive-health-guidance/women-and-supplementsdont-believe-the-negative-hype

Yesterday, the media reported on a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that concluded that the use of multivitamins and some other dietary supplements increased the risk of death in older women. Don’t believe the hype.

First, we’re talking about a single study...one that either contradicts or calls into question the data from thousands of other studies. Vitamin usage in this study was “self-reported,” which only makes any findings more suspect. There are lots of variables that need to betaken into account before we throw the baby out with the bath water. For example, what was the state of health in the study participants when they started taking these vitamins? And what was the brand and quality of the vitamins being taken?

Theres a huge push to regulate vitamins right now, but there hasnt been a single, substantiated vitamin-related death in over 25 years. As I just reported in the November issue of my newsletter, a new analysis of the annual US Poison Control Report found that there were no deaths (none) that could be attributable to vitamins in the 27 years these reports have been available.

Over the 27-year period, vitamin supplements were alleged to have killed 11 people in the US. (In 19 of those years there wasn’t a single alleged death.) A further review found that in each case, either the supplement “probably wasn’t responsible” for the death or there was no substantiation provided that would demonstrate the vitamin supplement was the cause of death. 

To get any support for increased vitamin regulation, some kind of danger needs to be created. Im not at all surprised to see this study being released just as the FDA is seeking very significant changes in the ways vitamins and other supplements are regulated in this country.

Keep in mind the decades of assault on one of natures perfect foods—the egg, and the cholesterol scare. These are just some examples that have been proven to be nothing more than fear mongering in an organized effort (with hundreds of questionable “studies”) to promote the sales of billions of dollars of pharmaceutical products. 

I would take this latest negative study with a grain of salt, or couple of healthy shakes, and, of course, my daily multivitamin/mineral supplement.