Supplements 101:
the Who What and Why of Dietary Supplement Manufacturing and Use in Clinical Practice

IATROGENIC AND OTC HYPOCHLORHYDRIA
tabs also not good for pts who are taking acid blocking meds (tagamet, etc)
without acid: don't digest proteins, don't absorb minerals
shakes bottle of tabs: as good as a maraca if you don't have acid
blocked acids in rats: made them more allergic to foods
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17227952?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=3
he asked the researcher, they're doing it in humans, same results
( guest lecturer week 7, this post has been moved forward in time: what forms of vitamins to take? good info here, esp on folate as relates to neurotransmitter manufactureCollapse )

The potentially dangerous ones are iron if you're middle aged and female are: multivitamins, vitamin B6, folic acid, beta carotene, magnesium, zinc, and copper. They used data from the Iowa Women's Health Study, which collected data on 38,772 women aged 55 to 69. From that sample, 15,594 died during the study period, which was about 40% of the initial group! Geeze. The people who took supplements were more educated, more physically active and more likely to get supplemental estrogen. Vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, and zinc were associated with about a 3% to 6% increased risk for death, whereas copper was associated with an 18.0% increased risk for total mortality when compared with corresponding nonuse. On the other hand, women who took calcium were more likely to live longer (3.8% risk reduction).

My theory: people take more vitamins when their diet is crap. I know I do this. I'll eat a dinner of popcorn and ice cream and supplements sometimes. But when I eat fresh organic veggies and meat, I skip the supps and don't worry about it. Perhaps we "older" women are using our pills to justify a terrible diet. Maybe? Guess I better start taking my calcium, though.

Absolute risk increase (total mortality)
multis 2.4%
B6 4.1%
folic 5.9%
iron 3.9%
magnesium 3.5%
zinc 3.0%
copper 18.0%

SOURCES
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/751263?src=mpnews&spon=34
Arch Intern Med. 2011;171:1625-1633,1633-1634
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/171/18/1625
http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/171/18/1633

The Institute of Medicine is trying to catch up with modern medical practice and has bumped up the recommended daily allowances of Vitamin D and Calcium in response to overwhelming evidence that most North Americans are deficient.
( notesCollapse )

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/10318410.stm

Add to this info that not everybody can use the form of B6 that is in cheap vitamins. About 1/4 of us have to buy the fancy B6 that is activated by methylation, because for genetic reasons we aren't good at methylating our own. Methylation is one of the main pathways by which your liver makes toxic lipophilic compounds water soluble so they can be excreted. B6 is key for supporting methylation, but if you can't methylate, you can't activate the B6 you get, so you MUST buy the supplement! For example, B6 is depleted in women who take birth control pills, and remains depleted for years after they stop. Just a FYI! I always have wanted to believe that I could get all the nutrition I needed from food, but I'm not so sure anymore. Considering the increasing insults of toxins and hormonally active substances in our environments, we can use all the help we can get. Provided we can figure out what is helpful and what is not. It is not so obvious....

It's a sign of confidence when a health guru uses their own product. Null's Ultimate Power Meal apparently had 1,000x more vitamin D in it than it should have had. That is, two MILLION instead of two thousand IU's. It's pretty well known at this point that the AI (adequate intake of 400-600 IU) and UL (upper tolerable limit of 2000 IU) specified by the government are too low for most North Americans, but Null was definitely taking a toxic overdose. The NY Post Headline got a guffaw from me: "Putting the DIE in diet". Not that I have any ill will for Gary Null; I am happy he is getting better after 3 months of slow recovery, and sad that his kidneys may be permanently damaged. He's 65 years old, sort of late in life to take such hard hits.
( moreCollapse )

At least, in mice, according to some brand new research, anyway.... I find it wonderful. I knew that the sun was doing something for me that little drops of a vitamin from a bottle could never do. Who knows if we will ever understand why. This is the best reason why medicine need not be 100% confined to what can be proven by science: we all know that sunlight and fresh air and pure water are good for us. Our bodies tell us so. Even if science disproves it, we'll still believe what we know from experience. How unscientific of us.
( Science is a process of proving yourself wrong over and over again: article text straight from Jacob Schor at Denver Naturopathic.Collapse )

See article on MD consult.
( notes on article including some interesting science on calcium supplementation contributing to calcification of atherosclerosis and increasing cardiovascular eventsCollapse )