The Truth about Supplements - by Dan Schulz, natural health practitioner – support@kakadujuice.com
The overwhelming number of supplements on offer can leave many confused consumers feeling like they need a biochemist on standby just to make it through breakfast!
If that's you then you'll be glad to know, there's really only 2 kinds of supplements to choose from; those that are natural and those that are not.
The hard part is knowing the difference. Marketers will do anything to convince you their product is either "natural" or is so high-tech it’s somehow "better" than natural. The truth is the majority of supplements don't contain any real nutrients; instead, they mostly comprise cheap synthetic chemicals.
(Editors Note: Dan has too much hair!!)
The need for supplementation is not at question however. As we decrease the variety of plant-foods we eat while increasing exploitation of animal, synthetic or highly processed foods, we strip our diet of essential nutrients while simultaneously exposing our weakened defences to more toxins.
Australian research of 44 common fruits and vegetables reveals up to 60% reduction of essential nutrients when compared with 20 years ago. Supplementing to fill in those nutritional gaps appears a wise move. The question now becomes, “fill in the gaps with what?”
A recent review published in JAMA has put the supplement industry into an uproar. The review of 68 clinical trials involving 232,606 people found that supplementing with antioxidant vitamins and minerals “significantly raised mortality” (people died faster). Now, before throwing your supplements in the bin, it’s worthy to note that ALL of the studies under review used SYNTHETIC supplements.
This mounting evidence combined with ‘pill-fatigue’ among the public, has boosted interest in wholesome ‘super-food’ supplementation to deliver these missing nutrients in their safe, natural, preferred form. Of course, this idea of going ‘natural’ isn’t new. Thomas Edison’s famous quote says it best: “Until Man duplicate’s a blade of grass, Nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favour compared with the products of Nature…”
According to Australian researchers, the world’s richest source of critical nutrients come from our own back-yard. Exciting discoveries from the Australian Outback place many Bush Foods into the record books. Getting a boost from the bush could become the next Vegemite as news of this emerging research gets out.
So, when thinking about supplementation, take Edison’s advice and stick with the ‘products of Nature’. It appears that getting low-tech nutrition from food isn’t such an old-fashioned idea.
Checkout www.kakadujuice.com for more information
PLEASE NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not those of BEYOND STRONG.
To be frank - the Jama study is complete and utter shite. Some months ago a longish version of the 'news' was reproduced onto one of my regular sites.
As per the comment included in the article it (from what I read) showed that it has looked back over many old studies. The key phrase which jumped out at you was "significantly raised mortality (people died faster).". But how they came to that decision is not clear. From what I read there was no clear indication as to how. Did they, for example, go back and interview the 1000000+ people (total numbers of those included in the figures of all studies) - apparently not. Did they have access to followup info from all 68 studies? Again not so you'd notice.
This is a fine example of what seems to be another excuse by those in the pharmaceutical industry to try and take some of the many hundreds of millions of pounds (in the UK alone) from the supplement companies and into their coffers.
One should always look at why, then the context and finally the whole article if need be.
Posted by: Steve Gardener | May 14, 2007 at 01:14 PM
As per my comment:
CORVALLIS, Ore. - A study being published today on possible health
risks of antioxidant supplements is based on flawed methodology and
ignores the broad totality of evidence that comes to largely opposite
conclusions, experts said today from the Linus Pauling Institute at
Oregon State University.
The research, which was published in this week's edition of the
Journal of the American Medical Association, concluded that
antioxidant supplements such as vitamins A and E may "significantly
increase mortality," and that there was no evidence for any positive
effect of vitamin C in the reduction of mortality rates.
However, Balz Frei, professor and director of one of the world's
leading institutes that studies the possible health value of vitamins,
phytochemicals and micronutrients, said that the new study's focus on
a selected group of clinical trials disregards the results of other
more positive trials, as well as huge amounts of laboratory, animal,
and human observational and experimental data.
"This is a flawed analysis of flawed data, and it does little to help
us understand the real health effects of antioxidants, whether
beneficial or otherwise," Frei said.
"Instead of causing harm, the totality of the evidence indicates that
antioxidants from foods or supplements have many health benefits,
including reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, some types of
cancer, eye disease and neurodegenerative disease," he said. "In
addition, they are a key to an enhanced immune system and resistance
to infection."
The "meta-analysis" published in JAMA, which is a statistical analysis
of previously published data, looked at 815 antioxidant trials but
included only 68 of them in its analysis, Frei said. And two of the
studies excluded - which were published in the Journal of the National
Cancer Institute and the prominent British medical journal Lancet -
found substantial benefits and reduced mortality from intake of
antioxidant supplements.
"If these two large studies had been included, none of the reported
effects on increased mortality would have been significant, with the
exception of the effects of beta carotene," Frei said. "And the
research showing a higher incidence of lung cancer in smokers who take
supplements of beta carotene or vitamin A is old news, that's been
known for many years. Very high doses of vitamin A are known to have
multiple adverse health effects."
All the new study really demonstrates, Frei said, is a bias toward
identifying studies or research that show harm caused by antioxidants,
and selective removal of research that shows benefits.
The mean duration of the reviewed trials was 2.7 years, so the implied
conclusion is that taking antioxidant supplements can kill people in
less than three years, Frei said. It is absurd to think that vitamin
supplements could have such an effect, he said, and no biological
mechanism has been identified that would explain it. In addition, the
causes of death were not considered or were not determined in many of
the studies reviewed, and may include accidents or other causes that
have nothing to do with diet or oxidative stress.
Most trials cited in the study, Frei said, tested multiple
antioxidants and additional interventions in the treatment of disease,
including a long list of other dietary supplements and pharmaceutical
drugs. The underlying health problems or multiple types of medical,
drug and surgical treatments could all interfere with or mask the
effects that can be attributed directly to antioxidants, he said.
"These trials don't tell us anything about the usefulness of
antioxidants in the prevention of disease, or whether the supplements
had the intended effect of lowering oxidative stress in the body,"
Frei said. "It's like doing a cholesterol-lowering trial without ever
measuring serum cholesterol. How can you draw any conclusions from
such a poorly-designed study
Posted by: Steve Gardener | May 14, 2007 at 01:18 PM