The Sound Of Settled Science

16 Replies to “The Sound Of Settled Science”

1. It’s brutal to try to wade through all the supplements and druggy drugs the medical pros keep pushing at us to save us. There’s little follow-up on all the disastrous results of taking massive supplements and prescription drugs and dope which would put a big hole in drug and supplement profit. Not to poo poo all medications, antibiotics save lives but even they have been over used and become ineffective.
   How much better are they than the snake oil salesmen of yore? Some of my own ancestors who were born in the mid 1800’s and lived into their late nineties did not have drugs like statins or vitamins to save them but according to generational info passed along they did call brandy “heart starter”.
   In too many cases aggressive treatment is started before letting the body do it’s own fighting and just monitoring it, we have lots of technology to do it.

2. Big Calcium is at it again.

3. I take a multi vitamin now that I’m an old man to make sure I get vitamin D in the winter. I become quite a miserable prick in the winter and this is supposedly caused by lack of vitamin D. Of course it could also be caused by six months of cold, snow and not seeing the light of day just makes one a miserable prick with or without vitamin D.

4. Between the extremes, common sense is always there if we choose to acknowledge it.
   We have a long way to go before we fully understand the body,mind and soul,or perhaps we
   were never meant to.

5. is that the british vIT-ah-minh or the n. american vY-ta-min?
   LOL !!!
   my anecdote: 500 mg vit C every day of the year, very rarely get colds in winter. sometimes none.

6. My doctor makes me take 3000 UI of vitamin D a day. Nothing about calcium though. He said you live in Canada, you need it. My buddies doctor told him the same thing. There are other diseases that are more prevalent in Canada. There may not have proof that it’s lack of vitamin D but there is really no harm in taking a supplement of vitamin D. The only other supplement he recommended was a multivitamin a day.
   I asked for a prescription for a trip to Hawaii but he wouldn’t write one. 🙂

7. Stop eating factory foods…..

8. S, Ms. McMillan, what is your praxis in regard to supplements for those marvellous dogs you raise? Theory is grey, but life is green, you know.

9. Supplements are there to -supplement- your vitamin intake. Anybody who thinks a bit of calcium and vit D is going to turn their osteoporosis around is sorely misinformed.
   You take your supplements along with a proper osteoporosis drug, eg Fossamax, and you do it under the supervision of a doctor. Preferably one who is not an idiot, because sometimes the side effects are bone spurs and calcium built up in places it isn’t supposed to be.
   Weight bearing exercise has a spotty record for improving osteoporosis,but I doubt you’ll see anyone telling old ladies to give up on the walking and sit in front of the TV more.

10. If you eat healthy, you should not need supplements. It’s a choice. Have to agree with eastern Paul, avoid factory food and I might add all fast food. Hadn’t had a big mac in well over a decade, tried one few months ago…horrible stuff that they call ‘food’.

11. Having done a fair amount of reading and analysis on this topic for a medical publication, supplementation with multivitamins in a rich country like Canada is mostly useless, and can sometimes cause harm.
    Most trials of supplements and food are observational and prone to much bias, so unless there is a randomized controlled diet I tend to ignore them.
    Calcium supplements are not needed in most postmenopausal women. Calcium supplementation is a scam.
    Vitamin D is potentially useful in Canada since we don’t get any sunlight in winter and don’t go out enough in summer, so all of us are mildly deficient. Of note, it wasn’t until relatively recently that we knew what vitamin D levels are sufficient, insufficient, or deficient. Deficiency of vitamin D IS associated with rickets and osteoporosis, about 10% of Canadians fit in that category (plus all the Muslim women in body bags who are often profoundly vitamin D deficient). Most of us are insufficient, insufficiency is associated with several conditions (MS is notable), but whether supplementing with vitamin D prevents actual diseases is still under investigation. Some trial data will be available this year.
    I do support vitamin D supplementation of about 2,000IU during the winter months, the risk is very small, cost is minimal and available data support potential benefit in cancer and other immunological diseases, and maybe osteoporosis.
    The dermatology industry did us a huge disfavour by making the sunlight a toxin. Get some sun in the summer, don’t wear sunscreen but don’t get burned. Start low and increase as tolerated. Some studies have shown only farmers and lifeguards reliably have vitamin D levels that are considered sufficient .

12. The profits from the sale of calcium and Vitamin D supplements are very marginal and very diverse. That is, calcium and D supplements are quite inexpensive and any vitamin company can sell these. So, the idea that somehow vitamin companies conspired to push the sale of these supplements to boost profits just doesn’t pass the reality check.

13. Moms know best.
    When I was a child we always had to take a daily dose of Cod Liver Oil in the winter months. Our parents knew that we would be Vitamin D deficient without it.
    In northern latitudes you only get sufficient Vitamin D from the sun between the months of April to October. In winter time, the sun is too low to get any benefit. So Vitamin D supplements make sense during our Canadian winters. Unless you are weird and like the taste of Cod Liver Oil.
    BTW, rickets has made a comeback in Scotland and the northern parts of England and Ireland.

14. Plenty of sun in our part of the world and skin cancers etc.
    But mutterings about Vitamin D problems from high number sun block

15. I agree, Madman. The serious money is in patented drugs. With calcium and vitamin D, there is ample competition and low margins in vitamins.
    Much of the problem is ignorance about calcium transport int he body. The removal of calcium from soft tissue and transfer into bones requires vitamins A (retinol), vitamin D3 and vitamin K2 (menaquinone) to activate matrix GLA. Vitamin K2 is a fat-soluble vitamin present in organ meats, eggs and certain fermented cheeses. With the low-fat and low-dietary-cholesterol fad in recent decades, vitamin K2 levels are quite widely deficient. So it is little wonder that supplementing calcium and D3 without vitamin A or K2 would be futile or even counterproductive.
    There are also other micronutrients required and, as Dr. Ron Rosedale emphasizes, bone strength is from protein, not minerals. Recent research has shown that jarring activity from jumping or skipping (jerk or jounce, in terms of physics) contributes to bone strengthening.
    “Rx for Osteoarthritis and Osteoporosis: High-Impact Exercise” http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/856323

16. I’m kind of a supplement believer. Though not all work for all people, just as not all medicines work on all people. So far, I’ve found nothing that will reduce my total cholesterol. But, if my HDL, the good stuff, was normal, my total would be below 190. And since everyone I know on statins has had not good side effects, I refuse my doctors advice to take them.
    Having said that, I’ve had my wife taking Vitamin D and calcium in the form or calcium citrate for as long as we’ve been married. Her mother has obvious signs of osteoporosis. The hunched back, stooped neck… Her younger sister broke a leg simply exiting a vehicle, and was diagnosed with weak bones. Her youngest sister and oldest went in for bone density checks. Diagnosed with osteoporosis. None of them have ever taken vitamin supplements. My wife went in- borderline, but above the density for an osteoporosis diagnosis. Random chance? Or supplementation? I’ll go with the latter. She’s taking fosomax as prescribed. Only learned in the last few years about the vitamin K connection. It’s now on the daily supplement list also.