Death By Vitamins
This morning, the GMA SmartBrief arrived in my mailbox. Itís the newsletter of the grocery manufacturing association, and it usually contains some interesting stuff about whatís happening in the food industry, usually divided into categories like "Trendsî, "Health and Wellnessî, "Advertisingî and "Science and Technologyî. Today, under "Health and Wellnessî the following teaser grabbed my attention:
"Too much of a good vitamin?î
I clicked through to the story.
It was a link to Forbes magazine, not known as a trendsetter in nutritional reporting, but what the heck, I figured, letís see what theyíre telling the captains of industry about vitamins these days.
The article was about "functional foodsî, a term which actually has no legal definition but has been loosely used to describe foods that have been fortified in some way with a substance that has some health benefit. This can be anything from omega-3 fortified eggs to protein bars with extra fiber.
Now donít get me wrong. When it comes to marketing, I put the food industry about one degree ahead of the tobacco companies in the ethics department. No one is more skeptical- some might say cynical- than I am about health claims for processed foods ("whole grainî Captain Krunch, anyone?).
So Iím no knee-jerk apologist for marketing practices. Sometimes, the addition of a substance believed to be healthy- soyís a prime example- can fool a consumer into thinking a wide range of questionable or even semi-junk food products (soy ice cream, soy chips, soy meat substitute) are "healthyî just cause theyíve got the magic term (soy in this case) on their label. And Iíve written at length (in "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth") about the squishiness of standards for such terms as "organicî, "free rangeî and "cage freeî, even though I support all three.
But the article in Forbes wasnít attacking dishonest marketing practices. It was questioning the whole idea of vitamins added to food, not because the practice is often used to fool the consumer into thinking theyíre buying something healthy, but because the vitamins themselves might be dangerous.
Yes dear reader, itís very important to protect consumers from the evils of vitamins. After all, they could really hurt you. Especially- gasp- if you took in more than the- all together now- "recommended daily allowancesî.
Now, does this warning seem - I donít know, a littleÖ what would be the wordÖ odd? How about barking mad crazy? Particularly in view of the fact that there is not one single recorded death from a vitamin overdose anywhere in the annals of medicine. Oh excuse me. Thatís not exactly true. Xavier Mertz, a Swiss scientist, died of vitamin A poisoning in an Anatartic expedition that had lost itís food supplies and had to eat the sled dogs. The odds of that happening to you are pretty remote unless youíre fond of dining frequently on polar bear liver.
But I digress.
The tone of the article in Forbes- no different from the tone of the reporting in so many other media outlets- is meant to foster an attitude of suspicion and skepticism about the benefits of vitamins. And- surprise surprise- who better to drag out as an "expert sourceî than a "spokesperson for the American Dietetic Assocationî.
"You can get too much of a good thing without realizing itî said registered dietitian Cynthia Saas. "If youíre already at the recommended intake, itís not going to do anything for you. It may work against youî.
OK, tell you the truth, to do justice to deconstructing this idiocy would take more time than I have today, so how about a few small questions for the good dietitian:
So if I take enough vitamin B12, B6 and folate to bring down my homocysteine, this is going to work against me? If I take more than the recommended amount of alpha lipoic acid to protect my liver and reduce my blood sugar (by the way what is the recommended amount of alpha lipoic acid?), thatís going to work against me? If I take more than the recommended amount of vitamin D or lycopene or lutein or xenazanthin or the pathetic 60 mg a day of vitamin C that your union "recommendsî this is going to really put my health in jeporady?
Just wondering.
Speaking of vitamin C, it came in for particular scrutiny in the article in Forbes, which said that "exceeding the upper intake level for vitamin C can cause diarrhea, an upset stomach and kidney stonesî. There are a few things wrong with this sentence. Number one, taking thousands of milligrams of almost
anything on an empty stomach can cause diarrhea in some people, and itís no big deal. (In fact, using huge doses of vitamin C (upwards of 10 grams or more) to "bowel toleranceî- the point at which you get mild diarrhea- was first pioneered by Robert Cathcart, MD as a detoxification and healing methodology. Cathcart believed- as many do today- that the point at which you get a "bowel looseningî is a good marker for how much C your body needs).
But I digress again.
The kidney stone argument has been around for a long time, and it manages to scare everyone, but itís a pretty iffy proposition. Though some studies using older methodologies did show that high doses of vitamin C increased urinary excretion of oxalates (which are substances that can form kidney stones), an excellent paper in the "Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism" concluded that there is "no contribution of ascorbic acid to renal calcium oxalate stonesî. In fact, in the highly regarded Harvard Prospective Health Professional Follow-Up Study, the groups in the highest quintile of vitamin C intake (greater than 1500 mg / day) had a lower risk of kidney stones than the groups in the lower quintiles.
But that shouldnít stop the American Dietetic Association flak from issuing the party line "warningî against taking a few extra milligrams of vitamin C.
Listen, hereís what you need to know about the ADA. Expecting to get a true picture of the facts from these people is like expecting to get a true picture of whatís going on in Iraq from Dick Cheney. (OK if you take offense at that political position, please donít- substitute your own favorite Clinton version, i.e. ëexpecting to get a true picture of the facts from these people is like expecting to get a true picture of what went on with Whitewater from James Carvilleí. OK? Are we still friends?)
Point is, the American Dietetic Association is a spin machine. They never met an establishment position they didnít like. They never met a vitamin supplement that they did like. They were the first on-board with the food pyramid, the last to abandon it, the first to speak out against any diet that recommended less than their cockamaymie recommendations for carbs, the first to apologize for sugar, the last to admit that "mistakes were madeî.
The worst thing about the Forbes article- and all the dozens of others like it- is that it leaves everyday Americans who donít have time to read the fine print with the overwhelming impression that vitamins in any supplemental form are "badî for you. And it lays the groundwork for the impression that the whole industry of supplements is this unrelegated mess that you better stay away from if you know whatís good for you, and hey, why doesnít the government do something about this anyway?
Will someone, please, remove the American Dietetic Association from the stage or at the very least shut off itís mike?
"Too much of a good vitamin?î
I clicked through to the story.
It was a link to Forbes magazine, not known as a trendsetter in nutritional reporting, but what the heck, I figured, letís see what theyíre telling the captains of industry about vitamins these days.
The article was about "functional foodsî, a term which actually has no legal definition but has been loosely used to describe foods that have been fortified in some way with a substance that has some health benefit. This can be anything from omega-3 fortified eggs to protein bars with extra fiber.
Now donít get me wrong. When it comes to marketing, I put the food industry about one degree ahead of the tobacco companies in the ethics department. No one is more skeptical- some might say cynical- than I am about health claims for processed foods ("whole grainî Captain Krunch, anyone?).
So Iím no knee-jerk apologist for marketing practices. Sometimes, the addition of a substance believed to be healthy- soyís a prime example- can fool a consumer into thinking a wide range of questionable or even semi-junk food products (soy ice cream, soy chips, soy meat substitute) are "healthyî just cause theyíve got the magic term (soy in this case) on their label. And Iíve written at length (in "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth") about the squishiness of standards for such terms as "organicî, "free rangeî and "cage freeî, even though I support all three.
But the article in Forbes wasnít attacking dishonest marketing practices. It was questioning the whole idea of vitamins added to food, not because the practice is often used to fool the consumer into thinking theyíre buying something healthy, but because the vitamins themselves might be dangerous.
Yes dear reader, itís very important to protect consumers from the evils of vitamins. After all, they could really hurt you. Especially- gasp- if you took in more than the- all together now- "recommended daily allowancesî.
Now, does this warning seem - I donít know, a littleÖ what would be the wordÖ odd? How about barking mad crazy? Particularly in view of the fact that there is not one single recorded death from a vitamin overdose anywhere in the annals of medicine. Oh excuse me. Thatís not exactly true. Xavier Mertz, a Swiss scientist, died of vitamin A poisoning in an Anatartic expedition that had lost itís food supplies and had to eat the sled dogs. The odds of that happening to you are pretty remote unless youíre fond of dining frequently on polar bear liver.
But I digress.
The tone of the article in Forbes- no different from the tone of the reporting in so many other media outlets- is meant to foster an attitude of suspicion and skepticism about the benefits of vitamins. And- surprise surprise- who better to drag out as an "expert sourceî than a "spokesperson for the American Dietetic Assocationî.
"You can get too much of a good thing without realizing itî said registered dietitian Cynthia Saas. "If youíre already at the recommended intake, itís not going to do anything for you. It may work against youî.
OK, tell you the truth, to do justice to deconstructing this idiocy would take more time than I have today, so how about a few small questions for the good dietitian:
So if I take enough vitamin B12, B6 and folate to bring down my homocysteine, this is going to work against me? If I take more than the recommended amount of alpha lipoic acid to protect my liver and reduce my blood sugar (by the way what is the recommended amount of alpha lipoic acid?), thatís going to work against me? If I take more than the recommended amount of vitamin D or lycopene or lutein or xenazanthin or the pathetic 60 mg a day of vitamin C that your union "recommendsî this is going to really put my health in jeporady?
Just wondering.
Speaking of vitamin C, it came in for particular scrutiny in the article in Forbes, which said that "exceeding the upper intake level for vitamin C can cause diarrhea, an upset stomach and kidney stonesî. There are a few things wrong with this sentence. Number one, taking thousands of milligrams of almost
anything on an empty stomach can cause diarrhea in some people, and itís no big deal. (In fact, using huge doses of vitamin C (upwards of 10 grams or more) to "bowel toleranceî- the point at which you get mild diarrhea- was first pioneered by Robert Cathcart, MD as a detoxification and healing methodology. Cathcart believed- as many do today- that the point at which you get a "bowel looseningî is a good marker for how much C your body needs).
But I digress again.
The kidney stone argument has been around for a long time, and it manages to scare everyone, but itís a pretty iffy proposition. Though some studies using older methodologies did show that high doses of vitamin C increased urinary excretion of oxalates (which are substances that can form kidney stones), an excellent paper in the "Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism" concluded that there is "no contribution of ascorbic acid to renal calcium oxalate stonesî. In fact, in the highly regarded Harvard Prospective Health Professional Follow-Up Study, the groups in the highest quintile of vitamin C intake (greater than 1500 mg / day) had a lower risk of kidney stones than the groups in the lower quintiles.
But that shouldnít stop the American Dietetic Association flak from issuing the party line "warningî against taking a few extra milligrams of vitamin C.
Listen, hereís what you need to know about the ADA. Expecting to get a true picture of the facts from these people is like expecting to get a true picture of whatís going on in Iraq from Dick Cheney. (OK if you take offense at that political position, please donít- substitute your own favorite Clinton version, i.e. ëexpecting to get a true picture of the facts from these people is like expecting to get a true picture of what went on with Whitewater from James Carvilleí. OK? Are we still friends?)
Point is, the American Dietetic Association is a spin machine. They never met an establishment position they didnít like. They never met a vitamin supplement that they did like. They were the first on-board with the food pyramid, the last to abandon it, the first to speak out against any diet that recommended less than their cockamaymie recommendations for carbs, the first to apologize for sugar, the last to admit that "mistakes were madeî.
The worst thing about the Forbes article- and all the dozens of others like it- is that it leaves everyday Americans who donít have time to read the fine print with the overwhelming impression that vitamins in any supplemental form are "badî for you. And it lays the groundwork for the impression that the whole industry of supplements is this unrelegated mess that you better stay away from if you know whatís good for you, and hey, why doesnít the government do something about this anyway?
Will someone, please, remove the American Dietetic Association from the stage or at the very least shut off itís mike?
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