Over-the-counter dietary supplements are a huge business in the US, aggressively marketed. Many people take them even if they have not been diagnosed with any particular deficiency but because they have the vague belief that if something is good for you, then more must be better.
But the benefit of taking such supplements in the absence of a specific need is doubtful. The results of a new study adds to the list of dietary supplements that do not seem to provide any benefit, in this case vitamin D and calcium.
Well, now there’s a huge new study, just out in the Annals of Internal Medicine, that followed over 36,000 older women, looking at the effects of a combination of vitamin D and calcium over a 22-year period… The scientists leading the study looked not only at the effects of supplements on hip fractures, but also whether supplements changed the risk of dying from cancer or heart disease.
The results? Well, the study found no reduction in the risk of hip fractures, which isn’t surprising given that earlier studies found the same thing. But because it was such a lengthy study, following people for more than 20 years, they could ask something else: did vitamin D and calcium have any effect on mortality? Or to put it more bluntly, did the supplements prevent death?
Well, no. But the report was a bit more nuanced than that. It turns out that deaths from cancer went down a tiny bit, and deaths from heart disease went up a tiny bit.
…So here is my new list of the top 7 (no longer 6) supplements that you should not take:
Vitamin C
Vitamin A and beta carotene
Vitamin E
Vitamin B6
Multi-vitamins
Vitamin D
Calcium
…What’s left? Well, if you don’t have a deficiency, there’s no reason to take any supplemental vitamins at all. If you want to spend a little more money at the grocery, buy some fresh fruit instead. You’ll be healthier for it.
As a final caveat, I should point out that although routine supplementation is worthless and megadoses of vitamins can be harmful, if you think you have a vitamin deficiency, consult with your doctor. Serious vitamin deficiencies might be the result of other health problems that your doctor can help you address, and treatments for specific conditions or diseases may include vitamins.
I do not take any of these or any other supplements, preferring instead to just have a balanced diet, so this latest result does not affect me personally. But I know many people who do faithfully take them and are likely to continue to take them whatever the science says, on the basis of ‘it can’t hurt’, which is the rationale used by people for doing a lot of pointless things.
Another large long-term study finds that it is much more beneficial to avoid ultra-processed food.
At a time when Americans consume more than half of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods, there is increasing evidence that eating too many of these foods can make us sick.
A study published in the British Medical Journal finds people who consume high amounts of these foods have an increased risk of anxiety, depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, certain cancers including colorectal cancer and premature death.
The data come from more than 9 million people who participated in dozens of studies, which researchers analyzed as part of umbrella review.
…Ultra-processed foods are abundant in our food supply. Among the most common are highly refined breads, fast food, sugary drinks, cereals, cookies, and other packaged snacks. They are often high in salt, sugar, fat and calories and low in fiber and micro-nutrients such as vitamins.
…One telltale sign that a food is ultra-processed is if its ingredient label includes substances you would not find in your own kitchen such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, hydrolysed protein, or additives such as artificial colors, flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, anti-caking agents and thickeners.
The key is to, as much as possible, eat food that you cook in your home.
If you live in the Pacific Northwest and work indoors you likely have a vitamin D deficiency. It is very common here.
I live in Scotland (56 degrees North) and work indoors. Vitamin D supplementation is highly recommended here, as deficiency is extremely common, and there aren’t many dietary sources.
Also, it’s a bit of a crude measure to say that something doesn’t help if it doesn’t reduce your chance of death from either cancer or heart disease. By that measure splinting a broken leg doesn’t help either.
I’m fairly confident that vitamin D supplementation has massively improved my mood, to the point where I’d say it was a significant factor in curing my depression, and has probably also improved my health generally. But those outcomes wouldn’t show up if your only question is “did he die of cancer?” In fact, I’m probably more likely to die of cancer now I’m not depressed, since I’m less likely to kill myself first.
“A study published in the British Medical Journal …”
Betcha lotsa Murricakns never got past that line… for obvious reasons.
So, I’m confused--first they say that supplements do nothing and are worthless…but if you take too much, it’s harmful. How can the supplements be harmful if they’re totally worthless and do nothing?
I won’t stop taking vitamin D just to find out whether or not I will feel crappy again, to me it too helped with depression. It did not cure it, but I do feel better the last few years I have taken it than I did before. I adjust my dose according to the weather and time of year -- I take more in the winter and less in the summer (when I am at a higher risk of depression anyway), and if I am out on a sunny day in the summer, I might not take it at all. But I do take it the whole winter. AFAIK there is no reasonable way to get vitamin D from food alone and I did have vitamin D deficiency a few years ago (it is the reason why I started to take the supplement).
I clicked the link and I laughed out loud. In the study, they gave the women 400 IU. I am not a physician, but AFAK that dose is not enough to be meaningful for old people. I consulted this with physicians IRL and I read several studies about vitamin D a few years ago and this was the absolute minimum dose recommended on some sites only. Some others recommended even ten times as much and most sources that I remember recommended at least 1000 to 2000 IU daily. So this study does prove that vitamin D does not work -- with the lowest dosage available. In essence, the women were barely more than a placebo and the study found out it did nothing. Duh! In fact, the wild variety of dosage is a significant problem for vitamin D studies, as I found out when looking for them. A lot of the studies that found no effect are old and done with this low dosage.
Here is one study -click- that I found after a few seconds of googling, that supports a hypothesis that higher dosages are more likely to have an effect. It does not concentrate on the health outcome but on the blood levels.
Here is a quote from the conclusion (emphasis mine)
Plus note that study was done on young and healthy people. Why would it be reasonable to suppose that a lower dose would work better in older, unhealthy ones?
Here is a metastudy -click-:
So no, tit is not proven that vitamin D supplementation does not work. The issue is far from settled. It appears to help a bit reduce mortality overall, whilst it also appears to not have an effect on some of the groupings like cancer or cardiovascular disease. The issue does not appear to be settled to me as a layman, it appears that it merely was not found out yet what vitamin D does to reduce the overall mortality.
I think anyone should consult things with their physicians and never rely on a single study found on the internet. A single study can be found for almost any conclusion, especially in medicine and especially for things with subtle effects.
SailorStar:
Dosage matters. The vast majority of people have enough Vitamin D and Calcium as it is. Taking a normal amount as a supplement doesn’t really make any meaningful difference. But if you really go to the extreme and overdo it, then it can become harmful.
Basically, there is a pretty decent range that is considered “a good amount” of Vitamin D/Calcium to have in your body. As long as you’re in that range, you’re good and it doesn’t really matter where within that range you are. Most people are within that range on their own, and taking an extra supplement doesn’t bump you out it. So why bother?
Of course, if you are deficient, then a supplement can help get you into the good range.
@3:
“All substances are poisons. There is no substance that is not a poison. The only thing that distinguishes a remedy from a poison is the dose.”
--Paracelsus, 16th-century alchemist
@6, OverlappingMagisteria: per the Cleveland Clinic,
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15050-vitamin-d-vitamin-d-deficiency
Many nutrition advisors also recommend taking magnesium & zinc to facilitate calcium absorption, so the non-mention of same raises further questions of study design quality.
I take calcium (& D3, magnesium, etc) on doctors’ advice because other medications they prescribe for me have a known side effect of calcium depletion -- did these researchers investigate each test subject’s pharmaceutical profile for similar issues?
On an endocrinologist’s advice I am taking 4000 IU of Vitamin D per day. I live on the Canadian side of the ‘Pacific Northwest’ so that and my sunlamp probably help keep me from spiraling into the black abyss during the winter months. Years ago I also discovered that taking Omega-3 supplements did wonders in tamping down raging anxiety. Vitamin B complex has also had beneficial effects on my mood. I’ll continue taking what I have found works for me despite what studies say it may or may not do for other ailments.
Never cared for highly processed foods, always find them unsatisfying when it comes to hunger. Don’t even like pasta or noodles. However during the worst period of my depression I was cognitive enough to know that I wasn’t eating a balanced diet so I took multivitamins at the time as a prophylactic. Don’t take them anymore since I developed the habit of putting 2 pieces of fruit out on the counter every morning and making sure I eat them before the end of the day.
Back in 2009, I had Multiple Sclerosis (MRI scans were unequivocal). On returning from hospital, I remembered a New Scientist article I had read about how important vitamin D is for the health of the myelin sheaths on nerve fibres, thought “that’s what’s attacked in MS”, and started taking vitamin D supplements.
I am no medical professional. I still don’t know whether that vitamin D really helped or just gave me expensive piss. But in the years since, I have discovered that there’s a strong link between MS and latitude (more prevalent the further away from the equator you go) and that there have been a number of studies as to whether vitamin D is helpful for MS sufferers (and why didn’t they tell me either of those things at the hospital??). The jury is still out on the latter, and it won’t be the whole story, but I am one of the luckiest MS sufferers ever in that I have never suffered further bouts of what is usually a recurrent, degenerative disease.
I don’t regret the extra expense of taking vitamin D.
Good video on UPF
I do take B12, but that’s because I’m vegan and don’t get it in my food.
As a child, I got a cod liver oil capsule (gummy thing filled with cod liver oil) from about November to March. I liked the taste of cod liver oil.
I’ve come across articles that suggest that vitamin K2 is needed together with vitamin D3 to move the calcium to the bones & teeth. Taking calcium by itself will not necessarily benefit the bones & can deposit in the arteries if the body hasn’t sufficient K2. The best source for k2 is fermented food, Natto beans as an example.
“While vitamin D3 helps your body absorb more calcium, vitamin K2 helps your body transport it to your bones and teeth rather than letting it sit in your arteries and other soft tissues in your body. This not only helps to promote bone health, but it also helps to keep your heart healthy as well”.
https://www.cloverinternalmedicine.com/blog/why-everyone-needs-to-take-vitamin-d3-with-k2#:~:text=While%20vitamin%20D3%20helps%20your,your%20heart%20healthy%20as%20well.
Per The Cleveland Clinic and other sources, gouda cheese is an excellent source of K2, and it provides calcium, as well. Take a D3 supplement with some gouda cheese and you get all 3 vitamins together. Other sources of K2 include egg yolks and chicken (any meat, really).
SailorStar @4: I can almost hear the Heartland Institute stealing your line and using it for tobacco: “How can cigarette smoking be harmful if it’s totally worthless and does nothing?”
LOL, Raging Bee, I think they tried that, but by the 1960s, even average people knew smoking was not good for the health. Lots of people were dying from lung cancer or emphysema.
What that particular report seemed to say was that Vitamin D3 is worthless like a placebo, but if you take a lot of it, it’s harmful. So, is it a placebo or harmful?
I live in a northern latitude and my skin is darker than an envelope, so I’ve been on 2000 IU D3 in the wintertime for a decade. My doctor sees a big difference in my health from before the D3.
SailorStar: the Heartland Institute doesn’t care about truth, or how long it’s been obvious to all. IIRC their first big job was a “new” propaganda campaign to deny that smoking was harmful or addictive. They’re also the ones who gave us “the Anti-Greta.” And they’re recently funded a really stoopid movie called “Climate -- The Movie,” which literally said there is no climate crisis (‘cuz Earth was much warmer in the dinosaur era, and still had a thriving biosphere then, so how can we say global warming is bad?), and CO2 was actually GOOD (their motto on the ad posters: “We [heart] CO2, and you should too!”). Their entire purpose is to spread anti-progressive and anti-environmentalist lies, they really don’t give a shit about what’s true or real, and they’re AGGRESSIVELY stupid. Seriously, stealing your earlier line would be among the LEAST asinine things they’ve said in public.
(The Heartland Institute)
During the “dinosaur era” (mid- to end- Cretaceous), most of what is now the “heartland” of North America was deep underwater: the Western Interior Seaway.
Somewhat morbid riposte: “If you really loved CO₂, you would put plastic bags over your heads and breathe nothing but CO₂ for the rest of your lives.”