Society/Culture 4 Corners on Vitamins and Supplements

[Chief]

Swisse and Blackmores pouring money into Unis and CSIRO...

"A lot of Australian families with expensive urine."

Turnbull's leaner, more commercially aligned CSIRO going hard at it.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2017/02/13/4616948.htm

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[Chief]

80% of reviews by the TGA find breaches - mostly because of no evidence of claims.

98% of complaints about advertising these products are upheld.


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[MWPP]

Not surprised -the natural medicine /homeopathic medicine industries are notorious when it comes to making unsubstantiated claims

The AMA voiced concerns about Blackmores /their link to Pharmacists years ago
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2011-...of-putting-commerical-interests-first/2942126 (I respect pharmacists , but the conflict of interest worries me , as it clearly puts commercial interests ahead of patients'/consumers' best interests )

This is the more recent statement
https://ama.com.au/gp-network-news/conflict-interest-pharmacists-selling-supplements

It's a pity that the same vocal minority of people who seem to wrongly believe in conspiracies related to allopathic (mainstream) medicine , also blindly put their faith/hard earned money into non-evidence based measures

Thankfully, *most* supplements *do no harm*
(But there are some exceptions , which is why it's important to discuss supplements with your doctor )

 

[Shane Hird]

Just eat an happy a day.

Two is better.

 

[Gough]

Lot of boomers with decent disposable incomes facing their own impending mortality. They're rich pickings.

 

[igon value]

Nothing irritates me more than the pseudoscience around vitamins, because it is well meaning and thinly based in science it is very easy to dupe people.

Some people do need to take vitamins (eg pregnant women with folate) but most people don't need them at all, and they do nothing if you don't need them.

 

[The Edukator]

Lot of boomers with decent disposable incomes facing their own impending mortality. They're rich pickings.

This is my mother. just recently shes told me shes been having kidney problems. i cant help but think pumping in that many vitamins might have something to do with it?

i'm not doctor but someone please tell me if they think there could be a correlation.

 

[Long Live HFC]

frontline did the US version about this time last year and is worth a look. i particularly liked the example of people unwittingly taking steroids which had been sold as vitamins.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/supplements-and-safety/

 

[Reynolds Number]

Put a hell of a lot of weights junkies in a job that's for sure.

 

[VineyIsLORD]

Lot of boomers with decent disposable incomes facing their own impending mortality. They're rich pickings.

The greatest moral challenge of our time and the dawn of a new epoch will come with the Boomers battle against their own mortality.

 

[Taylor]

Pharmacies shouldn't be allowed to present themselves as medical establishments while making most of their money from unsubstantiated placebo pills and colourful stones.

But, they will all go broke without it.

 

[flashmanvc]

It pains me to see hawthorn players on the Swisse commercials.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

Lot of boomers with decent disposable incomes facing their own impending mortality. They're rich pickings.

I wonder if they 'find' 'God' as well. Hedging all their bets?

The greatest moral challenge of our time and the dawn of a new epoch will come with the Boomers battle against their own mortality.

The fear of death fans many flames...

 

[VineyIsLORD]

I wonder if they 'find' 'God' as well. Hedging all their bets?



The fear of death fans many flames...

With any luck we will be left with complete nano technology for surgery and stem cell based replacement organs. People will be living for 1,000 years at least and physical work will be a thing of the past

 

[Bomberboyokay]

It pains me to see hawthorn players on the Swisse commercials.

Remember Brendan Fevola and Power Balance? Why I've never felt bad for him losing all his money.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

Thread needs more Power Bands

 

[Xsess]

What? You cant offset poor eating and lifestyle choices with expensive vitamin pills?

 

[kickazz]

Just a tip for those playing at home:

If you go into a pharmacy, there may well be two different types of staff - the actual pharmacist, and the other salesperson/advice dispenser type.

The latter has a bit of leeway legally to dupe you into buying crap.

The actual pharmacist does not. If you take the bottle of homeopathic whatever or questionably efficacious echinacia up to them and ask them "so does this work?" they are legally obligated by their professional code of conduct to tell you the truth (ie that it likely does not outperform a placebo)

 

[Ned_Flanders]

Just a tip for those playing at home:

If you go into a pharmacy, there may well be two different types of staff - the actual pharmacist, and the other salesperson/advice dispenser type.

The latter has a bit of leeway legally to dupe you into buying crap.

The actual pharmacist does not. If you take the bottle of homeopathic whatever or questionably efficacious echinacia up to them and ask them "so does this work?" they are legally obligated by their professional code of conduct to tell you the truth (ie that it likely does not outperform a placebo)

Heard a podcast on this very issue, and its a bit murkier

Pharma dude at a conference admitted to a case where a.mum came in with a bub and complained the bub wouldnt stop crying. Pharma dude saw nothing wrong with the kid, and suggested a homeopathey remedy

Idea was it wouldnt harm the kid, and it would appease the mum

Other pharmas didnt like this, because it sets the precident with this mum that homeopathy is a legitimate pharma approved treatment - and not just an expensive sugar pill

All agreed, its neither black or white on what a pharma dude should do in this situation, but the fact pharma dude financially benefits from selling high priced placebos raises concerns

 

[Chief]

The idea that even if it doesn't work, it can't hurt, is pretty bad.

As they pointed out on the show, sometimes the supplement is actually bad - increasing cancer risk with one.

And as we know from testing, they often don't even have the ingredients they advertise.


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[EagleShore]

Unfortunately it is not as black and white as one might make out. Not all vitamins or supplements are a waste of money, even if MOST of them are. For instance, with the dearth of fermented foods in the modern diet, a quality probiotic can be of immense benefit, especially considering how vital good gut health is to one's overall health.

Another example involves the much over-prescribed statin drugs that lead to a significant reduction in one's level of ubiquinone (aka coenzyme Q10 - necessary for ATP production in all living cells), which is found in organ meats, principally heart muscle. So unless you eat plenty of offal, supplementing with ubiquinol, ubidecarenone or ubiquinone itself is important in terms of counteracting some of the side-effects of statins.

Just as preventing disease by avoiding disease-causing foods and other lifestyle factors is superior to treating established disease with pharmaceuticals, obtaining all nutrients from whole foods is superior to taking nutrients in synthetic or extract form...unfortunately not all people access whole foods in the quality and amount required to meet their every nutritional need; similarly, not all people can avoid all diseases, hence why we need at times both pharmaceuticals and high quality nutritional supplements.

To engage in polemics when it comes to health, nutrition, and medicine is to admit one's lack of education in the subject matter.

An example of a supplement that can do more harm than good is low quality fish oil - EPA and DHA are highly susceptible to oxidation, and when oxidised, they have the potential to oxidise LDL (as do all the high-heat extracted polyunsaturated vegetable oils such as canola - but that is another topic), thus increasing the individual's risk of damage to body tissues such as the lining of blood vessels (atherosclerosis).

If any of you know anyone with one of those big buckets of cheap fish oil, tell them to throw it all away because consuming them will actually do harm. While you're at it, tell them to throw away the margarine which does similar damage, and opt for butter from grass-fed cows (far superior fatty acid profile).

For people who do not consume sufficient oily fish or other sources of omega 3 such as chia seeds, they should consider taking a high quality krill oil, the astaxanthin in which protects the omega 3 lipids from oxidation.

 

[EagleShore]

This is my mother. just recently shes told me shes been having kidney problems. i cant help but think pumping in that many vitamins might have something to do with it?

i'm not doctor but someone please tell me if they think there could be a correlation.

Yes. I'm not a doctor but I have trained in medical science and public health.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/2015/11/supplements-otcs-may-hurt-kidneys/

Tell her that aside from a quality probiotic (if she doesn't eat many fermented foods), ubiquinol (if she doesn't eat heart muscle), and krill oil (if she doesn't eat enough oily fish), she should not really consume any supplements so long as she also eats enough "regular" foods like quality meat, pulses and vegetables (which give enough B vitamins).

There are some other things like spirulina and chlorella which are good for detox (ie. during recovery from drug or alcohol abuse, or other disease states) and cancer patients who are not actively undergoing chemotherapy (high antioxidant foods such as these and green tea can reduce the efficacy of some chemotherapy drugs), but those are specialised supplements and should be researched carefully for the origin and quality (never get Chinese chlorella, for instance).

Whole foods man. Nature packaged bioflavonoids in the pith of citrus to assist with utilisation of ascorbic acid, for example.

Also, if she consumes green smoothies, tell her to rotate her greens and avoid mature spinach, chard, and parsley as they contain very high amounts of oxalic acid, which can lead to kidney stones and deposition of calcium oxalate in other body tissues (which can manifest in vulvodynia and dyspareunia in women). Some people go berserk with green smoothies (I am a big fan of them, but you need to know what you're doing) and end up with kidney stones and other conditions such as an underactive thyroid.

I could go on forever about the types of foods people should eat for optimum health...essentially if you find it in Coles or Woolworths, you shouldn't ******* touch it (the main exceptions of which are some of the deli fish, the grass-fed butter, cold-pressed oils, coconut oil, spices and unrefined salts).

 

[Chief]

Wow. Posting a link to a report on the uselessness of supplements gives us posts about... the "right" supplements to use.

How's this?

If it doesn't have a good scientific basis, it isn't medicine.

Alternative medicine with proven results is medicine.

The average person is not going to need supplements. Ever. If you suspect there is a deficiency, a visit to the doctor will confirm it or disprove it.

Self-medicating with supplements is useless.


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[Gough]

It's like the old joke; What did the doctor say to the naturopath?
Nothing.

 

[igon value]

The average person is not going to need supplements. Ever.

Not true.