supplements are useless?

[Clairewalker751]

just come across this article? Wondered what people's thoughts are?

forbes.com/sites/stevensalz...

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Quote:

That paper concluded that vitamin D supplements do not improve bone density, and they do not reduce the risk of osteoporosis.

Nowhere in that article does it mention Vit K2. As mentioned almost daily here, K2 is an important cofactor of D3. Taking D3 aids absorption of calcium from food and Vit K2 (MK7) directs the calcium to bones and teeth where it is needed. So maybe if they used K2 with D3 they would find it does improve bone density.

Did you read the comments? I think this one could very well hit the nail on the head:

5 hours ago

Negative spin research articles abound on Vitamin D. The medical gurus know that if all Americans had a 50 ng plus Vitamin D blood value rather than half that, that we would shrink our healthcare costs by about $1 Trillion dollars per year. That's why they keep funding research that discredits the true value of Vitamin D that is a hormone and controls the expression of around 3,000 genes that keeps the body healthy. When deficient in vitamin D, these genes can't function correctly.

[Beads in reply to SeasideSusie]

Current comments. Quite relevant for us.

Not to mention one of the first things to come out of covid was that lower vit D levels were related to worse outcome (or was it higher levels = better outcome?), or has that been discredited?

Text

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

Unfortunately, the Forbes article seems more keen on complaining about the cost to USA taxpayers of doing the new study. (Ignoring that fact that finding out the answer might be of huge importance.)

And the actual study lets us read barely a paragraph before hiding the rest behind the New England Journal of Medicine's paywall.

It is possibly significant that much ordinary milk in the USA is vitamin D fortified. Does that alert the applicability of the report to other countries - such as the UK - where milk is not ordinarily fortified with vitamin D?

Interesting - as far as we can read!

[humanbean]

I wonder what the conflicts of interest are for the author and the researchers of the papers he's mentioning.

I fear that eventually big pharma will get vitamin and mineral supplements banned. But they make a huge difference to my quality of life.

[Marz in reply to humanbean]

They are doing their best 😢

[59Blue in reply to Marz]

Why do you say that? Other than some really bad quality control on manufacturers of supplements that has resulted in products being banned I’m not aware of activity here.

[Marz in reply to 59Blue]

I was replying to humanbean and her comment re Big Pharma !

[wellness1]

I agree that a crucial flaw of the study is looking at vitamin D in isolation, without K2 and magnesium. I also question the practice of prescribing a set dose for all participants without testing serum values.

There was a very interesting discussion about this on another HU forum, for anyone interested.

healthunlocked.com/advanced...

[tallulah100]

Hi, well I know I was very ill when vit D was deficient and supplementing with vit D dramatically improved my health.

[TSH110 in reply to tallulah100]

Me too

[Sparklyjenson]

I am suspicious of the trial due to my personal experience.

Whenever I run out of vitamin D supplements my sore bones return and I feel more tired. That’s good enough for me.

Taking vit D has saved my bone density from deteriorating. I have osteopoenia and the score is exactly the same this year as when I was diagnosed and started taking the supplements 5 years ago. Usually it gets worse over time.

[arTistapple]

Forbes magazine is a global media company, focusing on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and lifestyle. Their own words.

That’s good enough for me. No mention of ‘health’ other than implied through “lifestyle”. My husband always asks “What is a Lifestyle?” whenever he hears this banal reference. It implies complete superficiality to me.

[59Blue]

He’s right that vitamins can be got from food for the majority of people and that many people waste money on supplements that are unnecessary. He’s also right that some people take huge amounts of vitamins that can be harmful, vit A for example. But he’s ignoring conditions associated with poor absorption where supplements are essential to get the normal levels, and he’s ignoring the multiple functions of vitamins and simplifying it too much. This is particularly true thyroid disease.

I’m not surprised about the results for vitamin D and bones. Supplements probable stop further reductions in bone density rather than improve it. Bit like people saying it will strengthen teeth. It won’t as your teeth structure is set in childhood and nothing changes it as an adult yet the vitamin manufacturers tell you it will. - ask a dentist.

The other thing is his experience - he’s a statistician not a clinician. I suspect there are as many if not more papers disagreeing with him.

[wellness1 in reply to 59Blue]

Sorry if this appears to be splitting hairs, but I think it's worth pointing out that the study didn't look at the effect of vitamin D on bone mineral density. It looked at the effect on fracture rates as reported by participant questionnaires and medical record reviews. This is understandable from a public health standpoint because increased morbidity and mortality resulting from fractures is a serious public health concern. But ultimatelly who fractures and who doesn't is influenced by more variables than just bone mineral density. Participants weren't screened for existing bone thinning or bone quality. (Scans would have been very costly) The study duration was 5.3 years and it could be that bone turnover rates in those with existing bone density/strength issues could take longer to be affected, as well.

When I first read about the results and some of the study details I was concerned with how this would be reported in the popular press. Without referring to some of the issues that have been raised here, some people may forgo or stop supplements that may well be beneficial.

[Tugun]

Hi Clairewalker751,

I can only comment on my experience.

Vitamins are not a waste of time but if taking them, you do need to be able to read your own body and what is working and not working. Sometimes that can be if you stop taking it, the malaise comes back.

I take daily Vitamin A with Vitamin C. I have been taking more than the daily recommended dose now (with Vitamin C) for close to twenty years. If I am sick I usually take more.

I wouldn't recommend Vitamin A for everyone as it can be severely toxic at high doses but my life changed for the better when I started taking it. Beta carotene is a a provitamin A carotenoid - meaning it is converted into Vitamin A in the body. There are some who don't convert beta caratenoid into Vitamin A.

As for Vitamin C, I can only relay the time a scratch on my foot at a racecourse led to cellulitis. I was on two lots of antibiotics for two weeks with the foot not going down but beginning to creep up my leg. I went and had an IV infusion of 30gms of Vitamin C. Within 24 hours my swelling had reduced by half. I had another infusion less than a week later and have not looked back. The bacterial cellulitis went.

I thank God for the vitamins. I am still alive!

Personally I think that IV infusions of Vitamin C should be allowed in hospitals.

Google New Zealand Swine Flu Vitamin C for a very interesting 15 minute news item from their Sixty Minutes TV program. This is an older program and it frustrates me that we haven't instituted Vitamin C in hospitals for those who need it.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

This is the LeBoff, et al. paper in the NEJM which is referred to by the Forbes article - at the fragment not behind their paywall (most of it is inaccessible):

nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa...

And this is from LeBoff, et al. in Clinical Trials - still in "no published results" status there:

clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show...

This is a Cochrane review of the VITAL trials (in 2020 so before this latest one was published):

cochranelibrary.com/central...

Two words jump out at me (in addition to the K2 SeasideSusie has already mentioned) by their absence: magnesium and autoimmune.

[DippyDame]

The author's bio reads...

I'm the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University

In a previous article he wrote

The vitamin and supplements industry, which is immensely profitable, relies on the intuition that if a little bit of something is good for you, a bit more can't hurt. Right?

Wrong. If you don't have a serious vitamin deficiency, taking supplemental vitamins doesn't provide any benefit, in almost all cases that have been studied. What's even more surprising is this: routinely taking mega-doses of vitamins might actually harm you.

Both articles are directed at Forbes Magazine readers....not health providers!!

Overall he doesn't appear to distinguish between supplementing for deficiency and supplementing with no deficiency

Reminds me of the phrased used by Mark Twain and others

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

Statistics aside this is an interesting read!

It refers to Vit D + vit K

healthline.com/nutrition/ho...

[Clairewalker751]

I will continue to take my Vit D/K2 my B complex my Vit C, my flaxseed and my selenium having read Dr Amy Myers and Isabella Wentz and the wealth of knowledge on here it seems common sense to me the good nutrient levels improve health 😊

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

I have just posted about a specific condition, karatoconus, in which vitamin D appears very significant.

healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...

The paper identifies specific genetic variations which are also significant.

As so often, perhaps some which genetic variations do need supplements. But they are now being told by the arrogant Forbes chap that they don't.

Parallels with thyroid hormone and the eventual slow and partial acceptance that DIO2 variants really do need T3 come to mind.