Experts: Don’t Waste Your Money on MultivitaminsThree studies find the supplements don’t help extend life or ward off heart diseaseand memory loss

(Note: Web-MD is a front for big Pharma and many of their articles arecompletelybiased)

Vitamins & Supplements

WebMD News from Health Day

By Brenda Goodman

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Dec. 16, 2013 (Health Day News) — With three new studies finding that a daily multivitamin won’t help boost the average American’s health, the experts behind the research are urging people to abandon use of the supplements.

The studies found that popping a daily multivitamin didn’t ward off heart problems or memory loss, and wasn’t tied to a longer life span.

The studies, published in the Dec. 17 issue of the journalAnnals of Internal Medicine, found that multivitamin and mineral supplements did not work any better than placebo pills.

Dietary supplements are a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States, and multivitamins account for nearly half of all vitamin sales, according to the U.S. Office of Dietary Supplements.

But a growing body of evidence suggests that multivitamins offer little or nothing in the way of health benefits, and some studies suggest that high doses of certain vitamins might cause harm.

As a result, the authors behind the new research said it’s time for most people to stop taking them.

“We believe that it’s clear that vitamins are not working,” said Dr. Eliseo Guallar, a professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In a strongly worded editorial on the three studies, Guallar and his co-authors urged people to stop spending money on multivitamins.

Even a representatives of the vitamin industry asked people to temper their hopes about dietary supplements.

“We all need to manage our expectations about why we’re taking multivitamins,” Duffy MacKay, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade group that represents supplement manufacturers, said in a prepared statement.

“Research shows that the two main reasons people take multivitamins are for overall health and wellness and to fill in nutrient gaps,” MacKay said. “Science still demonstrates that multivitamins work for those purposes, and that alone provides reason for people to take a multivitamin.”

However, Guallar said, it’s not clear that taking supplements to fill gaps in a less-than-perfect diet really translates into any kind of health boost.

“It would be great if all dietary problems could be solved with a pill,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case.”

For the first study, researchers randomly assigned almost 6,000 male doctors over the age of 65 to take either a daily Centrum Silver multivitamin or a look-alike placebo pill. Every few years, the researchers gave the men a battery of tests over the telephone to check their memories.

The men in the study were in pretty good health to begin with, and 84 percent said they faithfully took their pills each day.

After 12 years, there was no difference in memory problems between the two groups.

“No matter which way we broke it down, there was a null effect,” said study author Jacqueline O’Brien, a research associate at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Supplements are often marketed to have benefits for brain health and things like that, and this is a pretty clear takeaway message.”

The same study, however, had previously found that multivitamins might modestly reduce the risk of cancer and cataracts. Cancer risk was reduced by 8 percent, while the risk of cataracts dropped by 9 percent, compared to a placebo.

In the second study, researchers randomly assigned 1,700 heart attack survivors enrolled in a trial of therapy known as intravenous chelation to a daily regimen of high doses of vitamins and minerals or placebo pills.

Participants were asked to take six large pills a day, and researchers think many developed pill fatigue. Nearly half the participants in each part of the study stopped taking their medication before the end of the study. The average time people stuck with it was about two and a half years.

After an average of 55 months, there was no significant difference between the two groups in a composite measure that counted the number of deaths, second heart attacks, strokes, episodes of serious chest pain and procedures to open blocked arteries.

The third study, a research review, assessed the evidence from 27 studies on vitamin and mineral supplements that included more than 450,000 people. That study, conducted for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, found no evidence that supplements offer a benefit for heart disease or that they delay death from any cause. They found only a minimal benefit for cancer risk.

The results of the studies are so clear and consistent, the editorial writers said, that it’s time to stop wasting research money looking for evidence of a benefit.

“The probability of a meaningful effect is so small that it’s not worth doing study after study and spending research dollars on these questions,” Guallar said.

THE I.A.A.M. OPINION ON THIS WHOLE “EXPERT” VITAMIN THING

Through out the month of December of 2013, the internet, newspapers and T.V. was all a buzz about what the “candy ass know it all” experts had to say about supplements. One of the main titles read;

Multivitamin researchers say “case is closed” after studies find no health benefits to

Vitamin Supplements

(Read here: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/multivitamin-researchers-say-case-is-closed-supplements-dont-boost-health/)

There has been a fifty year movement in the US government to discredit vitamin, mineral and protein supplements. Any one who understands science knows that scientific studies and cases are never closed, they are usually inconclusive, which leaves room for further research. I have nothing against big Pharma wanting to create drugs and make a buck, but I do have a problem when they lie and tell us that healthy natural substances do not work in the guise of trying to sell us a drug with a boat load of side effects. The Government and big Pharma cannot patent mother nature, which means they cannot make a buck selling us natural supplements like Vit C and Vit E, which have been shown to have medicinal effects on the body when taken in the appropriate dosages and the right types.( note: Use the natural type of C & E Vitamins. Dosages of 3000 of Vit C and 3000 IU of Vit E have been shown to fight off many age related diseases). And because of this, their goal is to condition you to believe that only a drug can cure a disease and not natural substances like vitamins. Diseases like scurvy, bery-bery and certain central nervous disorders would not be cured by vitamins like Vitamin C, Vitamin B or Vitamin E or so they want you to think. (Note: Vitamin C cures Scurvy; Vit B complex cures Bery-Bery and Vit E cures many central nervous conditions).

Several years ago, one of my colleges asked me what supplements could she take to fight off her arthritis. I told her to take 2000 mg of Glucosamine, Chondriotin, MSN, 200 mg of SAM-e, 2000mg of Vit C, 500 mg of Fishoil, 500 mg of Calcium, and in a separate dose 1000 mg of Magnesium and Zinc. (Note: Magnesium and Zinc should be taken separate from Calcium). This is to be done daily. This combination of supplements helps in building the ligaments, Tendons and bones. She replied to me that she read an article in the New York Times (New York Slims) that the Glucosamine and Chondroitin did not do anything. I asked her to show me the article. When she showed me the article that conducted this scientific study, it showed that the dose used in the study was an inferrior dosage of the Glucosamine and Chondroitin and the quality was poor. This was done purposly to discredit the supplement. As I continued reading, this Pharmeceutical company was creating a drug that will help people with the problem of arthritis. Can you see the pattern here? I explained to her that Big Pharma’s goal is to put you on an expensive drug, which has many side effects. They do not subscribe to intelligent people using supplements to help with certain ailments. They do all they can to discredit supplement companies and individuals who subscribe to a wholistic approach to healing. Several years ago the actress, Susane Summers, worked hard to find natural alternatives to help her fight off her breast cancer. She was successful in her approach. She took it upon herself to study and learn how her body could cure its self when natural substances are used. Many in the medical community called her crazy and tried to discredit her. ” Suzanne Somers showed “Oprah” viewers her intricate daily routine on her hormone replacement and supplement therapy she’s using. For years Somers has loudly spoken and written about bio-identical hormones and supplements and how she has benefited from taking them.”

As I said in past articles, Your health is your responsibility. Use doctors only when you need to find something out in terms of what is ailing you. Once you do that, then decide if there is a natural route to take that can help you. Remember that prevention is key. Start on a program of eating healthy, exercising and taking nutritional supplements. Read all you can about Vitamin and Mineral supplements. The internet is full of great articles but stay away from those articles that use scare tactics that say that vitamins can be dangerous and can kill. This is balony. If you look at the statistics, there is a greater percentage of deaths in the US from people taking over the counter medications than with supplements. I searched the internet for these vitamin deaths and I did not find any. That does not mean that there isn’t a study being done with bar graph statistics but finding one is difficult. This is because the deaths on vitamin consumption is extremely low to almost non existant. But yet the medical establishment here want you to think that you can die from taking too many supplements. That is a load of Bull Crap.

In the Book Muscletown USA: Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York Barbell, Bob Hoffman began selling supplements in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. One of his main supplements was the Hoffman 90% protein supplement. In his ads that he placed in his magazine, Strength & Health, he made claims that protein helped in building muscle and improved recuperation from hard training sessions. The FDA came down on him because he was making claims that were not true or unfounded. What do we know today? We know that protein does build muscle and helps in recuperation and that the FDA is full of s*&%t.

My point here is this; We must take it upon our selves to learn all we can about taking care of our bodies because no one else will. Unfortunately, Doctors basically knowabsolutelynothing about supplements and even less if you are abodybuilder training and using these products. I can tell you stories about the times I visited doctors, and just for fun, tell them all that I am doing in bodybuilding. All I get are the typical answers all of theregurgitatingcandy asses give, whichis not to train so hard, do not take amino acids, and you do not need to take vitamin supplements. This advice is all crap in the ass. If you listen to all thatnonsensethen you deserve to be a candy ass and not a winning warrior.You must educate yourself and please do not rely on TV or the news papers to help you; this information is for the masses who are asses or for the “normal people.”

(Note: Read Danger and Play about normal people. http://dangerandplay.com/2014/02/26/what-ive-learned-from-normal-people/)  

(Note: Read Susan Summers Article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/29/suzanne-somers-daily-rout_n_162342.html)

Mike Savage rips a new one by showing how rigged the Vitamin study is

Until Next Time,

God Bless.

I.A.A.M.