Health Benefits Of Supplements Under Scrutiny Again

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With so much bad news around, one would hope that the media would at least have the savvy to recognise a positive message when they see one.

Alas, the expectation is perhaps too great to hope the media would drive a positive (and honest) message forward especially when it comes to the public’s health. Instead, they choose to jump on the old cricketty-crocketty bandwagon. This time it is: Supplements are bad for you.

We’ve heard this before

Professor Regan’s Diet Clinic, a TV programme broadcast recently as part of BBC2’s acclaimed Horizon series, concluded that supplements are totally unnecessary for people eating a balanced diet.

Academics interviewed in the programme supported this view, and went so far as to point out the dangers of certain vitamins when taken in large doses. And the message viewers took home was: Stay away from supplements - you don’t need them and they may even be dangerous.

It’s also a very ‘clever’ premise on which the programme is built to prove it’s point. See if you can spot the ‘comedy of errors’:

The show profiled the nutritional intake of two long-term supplement users. Their dietary and supplemental intake was evaluated, and it was found that their diet alone was sufficient to provide all the recommended daily intakes. So far, so good you may think?

I think not! An experiment with only TWO people proves nothing. Second, if the volunteers have been taking supplements for 15 years then I’m guessing these two are pretty health conscious, take care of themselves and therefore are in good health. (Note to Prof. Regan: - lots of studies have shown that long-term supplement users tend to lead healthy lifestyles).

So, where were the comparisons?

If there really was an argument to support, why didn’t the producers grab a couple of kids off the street, a couple of office workers on their way home, and a grandmother on her way to the post office? Once you have the lot together, test and assess their health before hand, give one half a balanced diet and the other half a balanced diet with supplements. Do this for at least eight weeks and assess the two groups’ health again. Then draw your comparison and make your conclusion. That’s what I’ll call a fair and equal trial at the very least...

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Missing the point

From this whole programme the only message that I got was, that the mainstream media and academics are still missing the point. In fact they are missing the biggest clue: Nutritional supplements. We are not talking about nutritional replacements...

The message may have been made with all the best intentions - a balanced diet is the ideal way of meeting nutritional needs, but the issue is not ‘how things should be’ but ‘how things actually are’.

The majority of people don’t eat a balanced diet, hence the need for supplements. And let’s not forget the fact that so much of our food is frozen, mass produced, hormone fed and sprayed with pesticides that even if we attempted to eat a perfectly balanced diet, we may still need to supplement our diets with extra nutrients.

More than a delicate balance

Consider vegans and vitamin B12. Plant foods do not contain vitamin B12, yet this vitamin is imperative in cell division and blood formation. Or what about the many people in the northern hemisphere that are vitamin D deficient during Winter months and during some summer months, too. Are supplements unnecessary for them? Is a balanced diet enough for these folks? Or must they stop supplementing with nutrients to see where their health ends up.

And folic acid which reduces the incidence of birth defects in children? Current recommendations in Europe are for women to supplement with folic acid. Why? Because they are not getting enough through their diets.

Coenzyme Q10 is another vitamin-like nutrient that is essential for any person using statins. Statins destroy Q10, which could lead to serious health problems and even death.

So while it may be all well and good to say that a balanced diet is the ideal - and I’m sure all involved in nutrition would agree - the science supporting the benefits of supplements to correct nutritional shortfalls should not be dismissed.

I trust that consumers are intelligent enough to realise when they are ‘sold’ a dead horse by the media. Supplements play an important role in helping people fill the nutritional gaps left by their diets or created by pharmaceutical medicine. For many, they are important and completely necessary. Anti-supplement propaganda is beginning to look a joke and people’s eyes are opening to the truth. Perhaps that is the message to focus on instead of banging a drum-beat very few of us are prepared to dance to anymore.

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Sources:

‘Statins Inhibit Coenzyme Q10 Synthesis’  by Chris Masterjohn, published online 05.08.05, cholesterol-and-health.com

‘Vitamin B12 in the Vegan Diet’ by Dr. Reed Mangels, published online, vrg.org

‘Supplements: Time to change the nay-saying record?’ by Stephen Daniells, published online 27.04.09, nutraingredients.com