The Top 6 Vitamins You Should Not Take

[Dixon]

Good news--now I can stop spending money on most of the supplements I take and just focus on improving my diet.
This article is a follow-up to the author's previous article "The Top Five Vitamins You Should Not Take", and focuses on Vitamin D. To get the full story about all six vitamins mentioned, after reading this article you should click on the hyperlink labeled "The Top 5 Vitamins You Shouldn't Take" near the beginning of this article.

The Top Six Vitamins You Should Not Take

The evidence against supplements continues to pile up.

Recently I created a list of The Top 5 Vitamins You Shouldn’t Take. Now I’m expanding that list to include vitamin D, which is taken by almost half of older adults. Now, two new studies in latest issue of The Lancet show that most of these people are wasting their money.

Read the rest of the article here (https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2014/01/13/the-top-six-vitamins-you-shouldnt-take/).

[rekarp]

Here's a rebuttal to that article:

https://www.lef.org/featured-articles/Response-New-York-Times-Dont-Take-Your-Vitamins.htm

Like most things its not that simple. I have evidence that certain supplements have helped me, but since it's anecdotal I won't mention it.

Ron


Good news--now I can stop spending money on most of the supplements I take and just focus on improving my diet.
This article is a follow-up to the author's previous article "The Top Five Vitamins You Should Not Take", and focuses on Vitamin D. To get the full story about all six vitamins mentioned, after reading this article you should click on the hyperlink labeled "The Top 5 Vitamins You Shouldn't Take" near the beginning of this article.

The Top Six Vitamins You Should Not Take

The evidence against supplements continues to pile up.

Recently I created a list of The Top 5 Vitamins You Shouldn’t Take. Now I’m expanding that list to include vitamin D, which is taken by almost half of older adults. Now, two new studies in latest issue of The Lancet show that most of these people are wasting their money.

Read the rest of the article here (https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2014/01/13/the-top-six-vitamins-you-shouldnt-take/).

[Dixon]

Here's a rebuttal to that article:
https://www.lef.org/featured-articles/Response-New-York-Times-Dont-Take-Your-Vitamins.htm
Like most things its not that simple.
Thank you for showing another side to the issue. I'm a bit skeptical about the article you link to, as it's from a business that has a financial conflict of interest: Life Extension, which sells lots of supplements. It does, however, cite studies reported in what sound, to my ignorant ears, like they may be reputable journals.

I'm frustrated that neither article tells us what the consensus of properly designed studies is, except for the overview of 50 years of studies of the (lack of) effect of Vitamin C on the common cold, mentioned in the Forbes article. It's really the consensus that is most likely to carry the truth; cherry-picking studies, even good ones, that happen to agree with our position tells us nothing. So now I'm confused again.


I have evidence that certain supplements have helped me, but since it's anecdotal I won't mention it.
It sounds like you may be aware that anecdotal evidence is pretty much useless. That's refreshing.

[arthurr]

I read the full article you linked. Here is one of the comments under the article:

Steven,
With all due respect, your position on vitamin D is not correct. T1st, the vast majority of the studies included in the analysis by Autiler and colleagues were grossly underpowerd and/or used very low (inadequate) doses of vitamin D. 2nd, in no way is the greatest proposed benefit of vitamin D its effects on osteoporosis – you are creating a straw argument. I have run the Osteoporosis Clinic at Stanford for 17 years…while it is true that severe vitamin D deficiency produces osteomalacia, and that having adequate levels of vitamin D are important for bone health, the elegant studies performed by Bess Dawson-Hughes and others demonstrated that the “adequate level” to prevent seasonal (winter) increase in PTH and bone turnover markers and declines in BMD is about 28-30 ng/mL, establishing this level as the lower end of the “optimal range” for most assays.
However, as we have known for several decades that almost cells in our bodies not only have nuclear receptors for 1,25-DH-Vit D3, but also possess the 1-alpha-hydroxylase enzyme that converts 25-H Vit D3 to the active hormone 1,25-DH Vit D3, it seems reasonable that vitamin D has important effects outside of the skeleton. For example, vitamin D is anti-proliferative in many epithelial cells and kertaninocytes; in general, decreases in proliferation rate are associated with decreased risks of malignant transformation, whereas pro-proliferative effects (as with agonists for tyrosine kinase receptors, such as GH and IGF1 and insulin) are associated with an increased risk of malignant transformation.

Over the past 15 years there have been a number of well-conducted epidemiological studies that have compared large populations stratified by vitamin D level to those with levels < 25 ng/mL vs those with levels more in the 40-50 ng/mL range (using multiple regression analysis to make the groups as similar as possible for other disease risk factors) , and demonstrated a significantly decreased risk of several diseases in the population with the higher vitamin D levels, including a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, of CVD, of Alzheimer's disease, of MS, and of 4 types of cancer (prostate, breast, colon and melanoma).
It is true that there has never been a "gold-standard RCT", which would require randomly assigning 100,000 people to have inadequate vitamin D levels plus placebo while supplementing another randomly assigned 100,000 people to sufficient vitamin supplementation to achieve mid-optimal levels of 40-60 ng.mL, then following them for 20-50 years to assess the rates of diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune diseases, AD, and cancer. Unfortunately, such a study is both unethical and unfeasible, so will never be done.

However, the NORA study results that came out in 1995 measured vitamin D levels in over 500,000 Americans age 50+, and demonstrated that 2/3 of them had levels below the lower end of optimal (30 ng/mL).

So I and many of my equally knowledgeable colleagues makes sure that our vitamin D levels, and those of our patients, are well-within the middle of the optimal range (e.g., 40-60 mg/mL), which for most (albeit not all) people requires taking 1000 IU to 3000 IU daily.

BTW, we know that the average vitamin D level during most of human (home sapian sapian) history was around 80 ng/Ml, based on serum levels of aboriginal population living much more similarly to our ancestors than do those of in industrialized countries, with little sun exposure during mid-day (and appropriate use of sun blocks when we do). So levels of 16- or 18- or 22- or 24 ng/mL (typical values in unsupplemented patients) are likely not "normal" by any criteria.

Many of your posts are quite thoughtful, but as an academic endocrinologist with expertise in calcium and vitamin D, this post is way off base.


Good news--now I can stop spending money on most of the supplements I take and just focus on improving my diet.
This article is a follow-up to the author's previous article "The Top Five Vitamins You Should Not Take", and focuses on Vitamin D. To get the full story about all six vitamins mentioned, after reading this article you should click on the hyperlink labeled "The Top 5 Vitamins You Shouldn't Take" near the beginning of this article.

The Top Six Vitamins You Should Not Take

The evidence against supplements continues to pile up.

Recently I created a list of The Top 5 Vitamins You Shouldn’t Take. Now I’m expanding that list to include vitamin D, which is taken by almost half of older adults. Now, two new studies in latest issue of The Lancet show that most of these people are wasting their money.

Read the rest of the article here (https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2014/01/13/the-top-six-vitamins-you-shouldnt-take/).