Poor & misleadingly titled vitamin article in the April, 2010 Reader’s Digest....

Today's Post: Monday, 3-22-2010

The April, 2010 Reader’s Digest has a “Vitamin Scam” headline with the extra comment, “Read this before you pop another pill,” on their Front Page.

Since that’s NOT the true theme of the article; and some people may simply read the headline and comment but not the article, that has the potential to harm people who aren’t knowledgeable and who don’t read the article. In addition, they leave out large numbers of relevant facts showing that many vitamins ARE beneficial.

1. The article says that taking a multivitamin fails to improve the health of people who eat badly, which is likely true given the harm eating badly can do. It also points out that there are valuable vitamins and minerals NOT in a multivitamin. That's true. And, though they don't mention it, many amounts in multivitamins are too low to be very effective. Some ARE high enough however, and the article fails to mention that.

They do note that women who might get pregnant probably should take a multivitamin. But, they do NOT note research showing that people who eat well and take a multi and take extra of the things that are low or missing in the multi, DO show better health.

They also suggest that very few people are so deficient in vitamins that a multi helps much. This ignores the new information that a majority of adults and children ARE deficient in vitamin D3. And, it ignores the research showing many older adults and alcoholics ARE also deficient in many vitamins.

2. They next debunk that vitamin C fights colds. They then show that it does but for many people the effect is small -- and for some groups under extra stress vitamin C DOES tend to prevent colds. Maybe the effect is less than people would like to believe. But the article itself shows it exists. And, vitamin C also DOES have other health benefits despite that for some people the cold fighting effect is overstated.

3. They then say that vitamin C doesn't help prevent heart disease. Preventing heart disease is a multipart job. I have seen some studies showing that taking vitamin C does help some parts of the job of preventing heart disease. So if you take vitamin C for what it DOES do and take the other actions that complement that and do the things vitamin C doesn't do, for you, taking vitamin C will help prevent heart disease. It may not do so by itself; but if you use it correctly it DOES help do the job.

4. They also suggest other vitamins are of no help in preventing heart disease. They then list things that seemed not to work when tested. But they conveniently leave out that the Berkeley Heart Lab has shown that the vast majority of people get more protection from heart disease from the B vitamin Niacin, B3, than they do from statin drugs. They also leave out that the B vitamins Choline and Pantothenic acid (B5) increases the protective HDL cholesterol.

They note that the studies tend to show that lowering homocysteine with B12, B6, and folic acid seems to show little protection. But they do NOT cover that many of these studies were done in people who ALREADY HAD heart disease; and it was too late to prevent it. They also say little about the other health benefits of these vitamins.

5. They quote the studies that lots of beta carotene was not beneficial in preventing cancer. At this point in the article, despite the heading that taking vitamins to prevent cancer is a myth, they conveniently leave out that multiple studies show that adequate, 2,000 iu a day or more, of vitamin D3 DOES test as preventing many kinds of cancer.

They DO state that the best way to get some vitamins is to eat foods high in them. TRUE. But they didn't know or didn't include that people who eat many other kinds of carotenes besides beta carotene and get a variety of the different kinds, which often do come from food, have been shown to have an anticancer effect. And, they leave out that by itself, the carotene lycopene, does test as having anti-cancer effects.
(Lycopene is most bioavailable in foods when they are chopped or cooked and eaten with health supporting oils. This apparently is true for many of the carotenes. So having extra virgin olive oil on your salad or in your pasta sauce is a good idea if you don't seriously overdo it.)

6. The only thing they came close to getting right is that new research IS showing that taking vitamin D3 in amounts larger than they used to think people needed DOES protect your health and is likely worth doing.

They aren't perfect on that though. They suggest 1,000 iu a day of D3 is enough when the studies I've seen show the most beneficial amounts start at 1700 to 2,000 iu and that twice that much may be better.

Lastly, given that the headline suggests vitamins are a complete waste, the benefits of vitamins they DO list, and the very large list of ways vitamins ARE beneficial that they leave out, this article is harmfully misleading and incomplete. And, the front page headline is worse!