The Article,....
The new studies, published today (December 16, 2013) in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine —including two new clinical trials and one large review of 27 past clinical trials conducted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — found no evidence that taking daily multivitamin and mineral supplements prevents or slows down the progress of cognitive decline or chronic diseases such as heart diseases or cancer.
"The message is simple: Most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death, their use is not justified and they should be avoided," the physicians wrote in an editorial published along with the studies.
This message is especially aimed at people who have no signs of nutritional deficiency — meaning most supplement users in the United States, the researchers said.
MyAching Kees comment: Who are the "people who have no signs of nutritional deficiency"? It is basically impossible to receive your necessary daily nutrients through today's food supply, therefore practically everyone has a need for supplemental nutrients. It could take years even decades for obvious signs and symptoms of chronic disease associated by nutritional deficiencies to become apparent. Many people will simply accept their reduced health and chronic conditions as just the process of getting old. I am saying don't accept that without a fight and high quality nutritonal supplements are one of your main tools in your arsenal in the fight.
"Study after study comes back negative — yet people continue to take supplements, now at record rates," said Dr. Edgar Miller, one of the five authors of the editorial and a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
MyAching Kees comment: These studies are flawed. They use people in various states of health and lifestyles, giving them a incomplete mix of low quality supplements often in lows doses. These studeis are also done by the conventional medical community who have a stake in seeing patients with chronic diseaes so they can prescribe various solutions to their ills, often with side effects, and chalking that up to the lesser of two evils.
There may be a psychological component to taking supplements, Miller said. Despite evidence showing supplements hold no benefit for the general population, some people may rationalize they need supplements because their diets lack necessary nutrients, Miller told LiveScience.
MyAching Knees comment: Lets talk about evidence. Me. A 45 years old man, BP constantly around 138/96. Cholesterol at 210. Rising PSA, A1C, and homecystine levels. Knee pain upon climbing stairs to boot. Start taking high quality nutritional supplements in doses considerably above the 70+ year old Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). Six months later and continuing today (9 years later) my routine blood pressure around 118/84; cholesterol at 151. PSA, A1C and Homocystine continuing to drop. Last blood lab results stated that my chances of developing chronic heart disease are 0.5 on a scale where 3.0 is half the average risk. Not only will I not take prescription medication, but my Doctor say's none is indicated.
The new findings are in line with those of previously published studies that have found no benefits from dietary supplements, including B vitamins and antioxidants, and even suggested possible harms. Results of clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people have shown that beta-carotene, vitamin E and possibly high doses of vitamin A supplements actually increase death rates, the researchers said.
MyAching Knees comment: Again, flawed studies with the "possible harm" scare. If these studies were conducted on a set of people exactly the same with exactly the same lifestyle (cloned people for example) AND gave them all the nutrients, just not cherry picking a few nutrients, and gave them quality supplements in the right doses - then these types of studies may begin to have meaning.
"We believe that the case is closed — supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with most mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful," the researchers wrote in their editorial.
The use of multivitamin and mineral supplements among Americans has increased to about 50 percent in the mid-2000s, up from 40 percent in the early 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For some supplements, such as beta-carotene and vitamin E, studies have found declines in use, following reports of their negative effects on lung cancer and mortality.
MyAching Knees comment: Cancer? My wife had surgery to remove a cancerous turmor in her sinus and frontal lobe. Doctors all recommended she stop taking supplements. She enters into seven weeks of radiation treatment being told that she will lose 30-50 lbs, be have continious nausea and fatigue, head aches, sore skin around head associated with the radiation and some other side effects. She was told to quit taking her supplements, but refused. She never had nausea,...did not lose any weight,...and the Doctors told her that have never had a patient breeze through surgical recovery and radiation treatment like she has. You would think these Doctors would like to know what she did to be different,.....what she did to keep her health through the cancer treatment. But,...no. As good as they are in what they do - surgically remove tumors and irradiate the affected site - they don't understand the simple connection between nutrition and health.
In contrast, sales of multivitamins and other supplements have not been affected by major studies that didn't find benefits, the researchers said. The U.S. supplement industry continues to grow, and reached $28 billion in annual sales in 2010. Similar trends have been reported in the United Kingdom and in other European countries.
The dietary-supplement industry maintains that for many Americans, diet alone may not provide the necessary vitamins they need daily, Miller said.
"The industry tries to create the impression that we are deficient, but randomized trials show that we are not all deficient and we don't benefit from supplements," Miller said, adding that clinical trials include people with varied diets from the general population.
The new review study looked at clinical trials that included a total of 450,000 older adults. All together, the researchers didn't find clear evidence of a beneficial effect of supplements on cancer and heart diseases.
MyAching Knees comment: Look the terms this article is using,....."clinical research,...new studies,...randomized trials",......kind of leaving off the who, what, when and where aren't they?
In another study, researchers looked at the effects of taking a daily combination of nutrients —including vitamins A, C, E, beta-carotene and B vitamins — in 6,000 men ages 65 and older who were followed for 12 years. The cognitive performance and verbal memory of participants who took multivitamin supplements didn't differ from those of participants who took placebo.
In the third study, the researchers examined whether high doses of multivitamins and minerals could prevent heart attacks, strokes and death in 1,700 people who have already had a heart attack. After an average follow-up of five years, the results didn't show a difference between participants who took dietary supplements and those who didn't.
MyAching Knees comment: "no difference between participants who took dietary supplements and those who didn't",......what supplements are they talking about anyway? The low quality food grade off the shelf supplements? Or the pharmaceutical grade supplements containing all the nutrients in the right doses? These un-named physicians can keep their "clinical research,...new studies,...randomized trials",.........we're going to keep doing what we are doing and that is take the best supplements we can find, avoid toxins as much as we can, and live a physical lifestyle which has been possible these last 9 years since my knee pain is gone. We're just going to maintain our healthy lifestyles trying to live long and die short which is the opposite of most Americans.
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