Wizard recently made an interesting post on the "drive to minimize supplementation" that I wanted to respond to in-depth.
The post: healthunlocked.com/pasoc/po...
I decided a long form response would be better, thus my separate post here. Apologies if the post jumps around a bit!
There is an interesting section on supplementation "myths" in a widely used reference book for dieticians, that I'm currently reading, the "Complete Food and Nutrition Guide" from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (USA). One of their claims is that:
"Emotional Stress doesn't increase nutritional needs"
But this flatly contradicts currently available research, described in a review paper that looked at the effect of stress on micronutrient concentrations in the body based on previous research and including human or animal models.
The American Nutrition Society has a useful article on the subject that references the paper:
nutrition.org/nutrition-and...
The conclusion of the paper was that:
"Although research is somewhat limited and the robustness of research is variable, the bulk of evidence suggests psychological and physical stress can influence concentrations of several micronutrients."..."The largest body of evidence demonstrates stress-induced depletion of magnesium and zinc, although several studies (both human and animal) demonstrate the effects of stress on calcium and iron concentrations."
โThe Effects of Psychological and Environmental Stress on Micronutrient Concentrations in the Body: A Review of the Evidence"
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
So here you have a widely used textbook and reference for dieticians which is out of step with the current evidence on whether the body may need more of certain minerals during times of stress. Concerning to say the least. This is a 2017 testbook but still...
This also brings to mind a podcast I listened to recently on Andrew Huberman, the popular podcaster and neuroscience professor:
conspirituality.net/episode...
A referenced McGill article has some further interesting points:
mcgill.ca/oss/article/criti...
At one point in the Conspirituality podcast the guest describes vitamin supplements as largely being only useful for producing "expensive urine". He also mentions there being concerns with risk of toxicity from taking large amounts of the fat-soluble vitamins, which he says can "bio-accumulate".
These are honestly pretty common opinions in mainstream medical science and even in significant portions of the dietetic and nutrition field. When I had my vitamin B12 level tested, there was significant concern over whether I might be taking "too much". There was no recognition of the fact that B12 does not have a tolerable limit and toxicity has never been conclusively demonstrated. There was also no understanding of how much B12 was necessary to supplement, or how frequently, if my diet did not contain it (which I was clear to them it did not).
Despite this, confident supplementation recommendations were made to me for B12 which were 30x less than the recommended minimum maintenance frequency. All on the basis of a serum B12 test which is known to be unreliable and showed high serum B12 (~600) for reasons that are not entirely clear. There is a widespread belief that its is always safer and more recommended to get any specific nutrient from foods (or sunlight) rather than a supplement. But this is not always the case and safe vitamin D supplementation can be a better approach than lengthy sun exposure for example, which risks sunburn and thereby increased skin cancer risk. There is not a one size fits all answer for every case.
Speaking to many others who dealt with doctors here, I found they experienced a common trend of extreme concern over supplementation. I'm not saying that supplementation is always safe, or even necessary but there seems to be near zero acceptance that dietary supplementation could be something that can be part of a healthy diet, not just to treat deficiency, but as a complement to the diet, in the long-term to ensure particular nutrients are not falling short on a regular basis.
In the case of low stomach acid or poor absorption, the possibility that supplementation may be needed even if the diet is excellent seems to be poorly understood/recognised in the medical field, as many here have discovered.
Please don't misunderstand as I'm NOT saying that supplementation can fix an unhealthy or poorly planned diet. It certainly cannot. There are benefits such as phytonutrients, various types of fibre, many minerals and some vitamins which supplementation cannot replace. Plants contain thousands of phytonutrients which have been poorly studied for their health benefits. It is not known which phytonutrients provide health benefits, in what form or provided with which others in which food matrix. So we have no idea if a small selection of isolated phytonutrients provided in supplement form would have the same, or any, beneficial effect.
Dietary diversity is also very important for gut microbiome health. Diet comes first, I agree 100% with this.
But many dieticians and doctors seem to think a desirable end goal is always to have a diet that does not include any supplements. I cannot agree with this as there are many cases in which supplementation will be useful or indeed absolutely necessary. The obvious one for me would be a vegan diet. The reality is that if I had religiously taken a simple multivitamin supplement every day for the last 15 years, I would never have become deficient and never would have ending up seeing the doctor who disastrously misdiagnosed me.
A good example for the general population is vitamin D. Most people will need a moderate vitamin D supplement over the winter or if not getting sufficient sun in the summer months. But yet most doctors seem to have a mortal fear of vitamin D supplementation and are loath to advise patients with low vitamin D to supplement regularly long-term. They are happy to treat a deficiency with megadoses but then stop supplementation entirely when the deficiency is corrected. Leaving the patient with a recommendation to "get more sun". Which is not going to be possible or sufficient in the winter months in more Northern Latitudes, or even on overcast summer days. Vitamin D deficiency in the general population is such a stupidly easy problem to solve (for many people in the developed world) if there was a general recommendation for safe supplementation over the winter months or when staying inside, such as between 1000IU and 2000IU. Some may need more than this if overweight or with absorption issues but there is no risk of overdose or dangerous "bioaccumulation" at such doses. The safe upper limit of 4000IU was set very conservatively and even such doses can be safely taken due to vitamin D needing to undergo several steps before it converts to the active form, a conversion rate very well controlled by the body to prevent harm.
Another good case for supplementation is older individuals who are not getting many calories and would otherwise risk falling short on certain vitamins/minerals or macronutrients, especially protein. Protein requirements do not change as we age but reduced stomach acid means its not as well absorbed which along with reduced caloric intake can mean sub-optimal protein absorption. Thus it may make sense to consider moderate protein supplementation for older age groups.
You may be used to following a certain dietary pattern and not wish to change it, even though you can see that certain nutrient intakes are low via a tool like Cronometer. You may not want to eat certain foods that contain high amounts of the lacking mineral or vitamin, either because of the taste, the botheration of cooking or preparing them or for ethical/allergy/tolerance reasons. It makes perfect sense in this case to make up the shortfall with a dietary supplement. I find my Calcium intake a bit lower than I like it so I take a 250mg supplement to make up the (small) shortfall.
With lower caloric intake overall, other vitamins or minerals also may not reach the RDA, thus a moderate RDA-level multivitamin and mineral makes a lot of sense. Of course, diet should be improved first, but beyond that, a multivitamin may make a lof of sense in these populations.
There are sometimes concerns over supplement quality, something which third-party testing attempts to alleviate. I have mentioned Labdoor in the past and I regret that because I was just made aware of the following incident with their testing:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=bchTV...
I still think third-party testing is useful but the example of Labdoor shows that caution is warranted and that this is not a foolproof strategy either.
Here's an interesting documentary on the topic from CBC News:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=SmFu8...
There can also be legitimate concerns about interaction with other medication which certainly should be considered and taken into account on an individual basis.
However a lot of concerns with vitamin supplementation derive from trials where huge supplementation doses were provided. You can see this for instance in many trials of Vitamin A, Beta-Carotene and Vitamin E:
ref: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/173...
In these cases negative outcomes resulted in a recommendation in some quarters not to ever supplement these nutrients at all. But dosage amounts are key - the conclusion should not be that any amount of supplementation is unsafe just because doses well in excess of the RDA (as used in most of the trials) had negative effects. Anti-oxidant supplements seem on balance to be ineffective and even harmful when they upset the natural balance of oxidants+anti-oxidants in the body.
B6, as we know, is somewhat infamous for its neurotoxicity, in certain forms, at certain dosages. The EFSA recently revised downward the B6 tolerable upper limit to 12mg a day, suggesting possible toxicity from some forms even at moderately high doses.
Many medical practitioners only appear to have paid attention briefly during their nutrition training (if they had any) and simply picked up the general guideline that there is a bell curve for most nutrients where low amounts lead to deficiency but large amounts can be toxic.
In GENERAL this is true but it is not true for all nutrients and where intake is absent or sub-optimal and cannot be corrected by diet for whatever reason, then supplementation becomes a viable, even necessary strategy.
Celery Juice though, is probably NOT the answer ๐
abbylangernutrition.com/is-...
Treatment with massive doses of particular nutrients, in the absence of deficiency, is a particular form of quackery with a long history dating back to the 1950's, known as "Orthomolecular Medicine" but most recently revived by popular YouTubers like Elliot Overton.
But I accept that it is possible that in the future we may discover that optimal levels of health can be achieved by supplementing one or more nutrients beyond whats available even from an excellent diet - but I think thats best left to nutritional science to prove rather than personal experimentation.
Where personal experimentation is concerned it is not possible to discount placebo or nocebo effects and there is by definition no control group and often no way to realistically control or account for confounding factors that may have influenced the result. And of course there is the question not just of efficacy but of personal safety. B12 being an honourable exception.
Final comments on recommended supplements and other relevant resources:
Omega 3 EPA/DHA is a sensible supplement to most diets:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=bwdPh...
Creatine is another excellent, extensively tested supplement that is a good idea for most people, not just bodybuilders:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=29nyG...
Athough supplements are beloved by many naturopathic doctors and those who promote orthomolecular medicine, you should be very skeptical of any claims from them as this talk illustrates:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=3NrkE...
Finally, here is an informed discussion on multivitamin supplementation with a very experienced nutrition researcher: