Megavitamins are Megadangerous

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For decades, I’ve been telling my clients and friends that they are wasting their money buying vitamins. Because unless you don’t eat properly – or have a very specific condition (like the need for folate by pregnant women, calcium and vitamin D for some post-menopausal women, or those with macular degeneration needing antioxidants and zinc)- there is no value in taking these little pills (except to the manufacturers and vendors).

Vitamins Table
Vitamins Table (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oh, I know the vendors promise that you can just pop the pill in your mouth and your body will metabolize- properly- those vital chemicals. But, do you even know if the vitamins are the right form? Produced properly?

Well, as I wrote years ago, even if you knew that these were really quality items, scientific data indicates they don’t provide any benefit.  The Archives of Internal Medicine published a study (Neuhouser et. al.) involving some 160K post-menopausal women and found that – despite the various claims- multivitamins had no effect on mortality, strokes, heart attacks, or cancer. The only affect was on your pocketbook. Let us not forget that we have “fortified” many of our food staples with extra nutrients- salt, flour, juice, cereals, among others, which is one of the reasons why vitamin pills are superfluous.

Don’t think those individual vitamins and mineral tablets are any better. Nope- no benefit to taking calcium, niacin, vitamin B-6, or even those antioxidants (vitamins A, C, E, beta carotene, folate (Vitamin B-12), or selenium). No, they did not destroy free- radicals, nor did they do any better than the multivitamins on the big diseases mentioned above. As a matter of fact, the 2007 study on some 260K folks (Bjelakovic et. al in the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA) indicated they INCREASED your chance of death.

And, if you are, G-d forbid, being treated for cancer, you should know these pills could reduce the effectiveness of the chemotherapy. (Oh, and without free- radicals, which work on those cancerous cells and augment our immune function, everyone would be worse off.)

You see the problem is that scientists know that people only need the recommended daily allowance- that’s the vitamins present in a reasonable diet. But, vitamin manufacturers claims we don’t eat properly or that we miss certain nutrients and, therefore, fall short. Moreover, they want you to believe that more is better. But, if the vitamins are fat soluble- more is dangerous!

Let us not forget that the reason we are so confused is simple.  The vitamin manufacturers convinced William Proxmire (then a Wisconsin Senator) to work hard to prevent the FDA from regulating megavitamins. And, that happened on 22 April 1976.  (It’s actually known as the Proxmire Amendment- which made FDA regulation of vitamins impossible.) So, the FDA is not allowed to tell you what I just did- that megavitamins increase your risk of cancer, heart disease, and may even cut your life short.

You’ve been warned!

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23 thoughts on “Megavitamins are Megadangerous”

  1. Excellent article. I agree. I’ve read info in the past about the uselessness of vitamins. Never take them. Prefer to get them in real food, when I can find it 🙂
    Carol Tomany recently posted..Utne Reader

  2. Vitamins…Rather expensive urine?

    I learned some of the dangers of OTC vitamins when Rod was going through chemo. The popular stuff that “lowers” your PSA doesn’t actually lower it but can mask it on blood tests making for a false reading that could cause you to delay treatment of a more serious issue. Not good. So they do something, it may not be what you want…but something, and it is dangerous.
    Lisa recently posted..Warm Evenings by Lisa Brandel

    1. Drink milk or eat yoghurt (or cottage cheese). Make sure you get some iron-rich foods, too- beans, artichokes, spinach, olives, chard, lentil sprouts…
      Unless you are post-menopausal (which I highly doubt, Alessa), there is no need for calcium tablets.

  3. Roy, my B-12 was very low 2 years ago and I started taking B-12 sublingual supplements, which did dramatically raise my B-12 levels. Are you saying that should not be the case, according to this study?

    1. Why take “regular” vitamins? Why do you need them, Ann? Unless you have specific conditions, you are not doing anything.
      Are you trying to preserve your wood finish, Ann? That’s a perfect use for flax seed oil.
      I was never a fan of Lucy- at least not since I have been five. It’s not that I don’t like her, but I just found a lot of the routines dated and silly.
      I don’t like the fake claims made by the vitamin industry (or any industry, for that matter). Selling something , preying upon people’s fears, is a real no-non in my book.

    1. The problem, Bill, is that some vitamins are fat soluble. So, they are NOT excreted- and that means your body is being poisoned. The fact that you are overdosing on vitamins that are water soluble- means that you are foolish and wasting money- but, u nless, your kidneys are at risk, you can survive (for a while). Not so, with the fat-soluble ones. And, not so for those that destroy your free-radicals- because you are diminishing your body’s ability to keep you healthy.

  4. Excellent post! I only take supplements after a blood analysis, if I need something. It seems to be working rather well. I can’t believe that some people spend so much money on vitamins.
    MuMuGB recently posted..Overcoming Daily Hurdles

  5. Great Article, sorry I missed it the first time. I do take 50,000 units of D, twice a month because I have Pagets in two small bones in my head and they are controlled by D, however even with that large amount, most of time I have less that the daily required amount. However as for the rest of those being sold, I agree, unless a doctor has put a person on them, they should get their vitamins from wholesome food.
    Chef William recently posted..Lazy In Mexico

    1. I swore that I responded to this yesterday, Chef William. So, if this is a duplicate, I apologize.
      You provided the key reason why we sometimes do need supplements- there is a specific medical purpose behind them. And, I hope that you are employing drug grade supplements that have high purity and bioavailability- so that you can obtain the desired results.
      You are absolutely correct in that we need to modify our food intake (nutrition) to afford us the ability to garner the vital nutrients, vitamins, and co-factors that we need in a bioavailable system, so we can garner the best results.

      Thanks for your comments and visit.

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