Medicine's Lack of Scientific Knowledge on Nutrition
Ordinarily, I read and appreciate the great diversity in opinion
and judgment, in aviation and elsewhere. In the case of Brent Blue,
MD, however, I find his pronouncements on nutrition to be so biased
and misaligned with the facts that I am motivated to point this
out.
I think most readers understand that, as a group, physicians are not particularly knowledgable on the topic of nutrition. That is changing with the younger MDs and with the other health care providers who now have a large share of the primary healthcare responsibility.
Dr. Blue however, is clearly from the old school. He regales us with his "n = 1" generalizations (all blonds have blue eyes, at least the one I saw did) self-selected to serve his bias that nutritional supplements are worthless, while ignoring the real evidence on all sides of this large and complex issue, evidence based on replicated clinical trials.
It is not my intention to open a debate on nutritional supplements. I do want to point out that when Dr. Blue cites a single incident where "X" occurred to one individual "because" he took supplement "Y," he is reasoning out of superstition and/or bias. I would invite anyone interested in furthering his knowledge on the topic to scan the titles of 100 or so articles in the Journal of Clinical nutrition. Read the abstracts of a few that interest you.
Stick to what you know Brent.
I think most readers understand that, as a group, physicians are not particularly knowledgable on the topic of nutrition. That is changing with the younger MDs and with the other health care providers who now have a large share of the primary healthcare responsibility.
Dr. Blue however, is clearly from the old school. He regales us with his "n = 1" generalizations (all blonds have blue eyes, at least the one I saw did) self-selected to serve his bias that nutritional supplements are worthless, while ignoring the real evidence on all sides of this large and complex issue, evidence based on replicated clinical trials.
It is not my intention to open a debate on nutritional supplements. I do want to point out that when Dr. Blue cites a single incident where "X" occurred to one individual "because" he took supplement "Y," he is reasoning out of superstition and/or bias. I would invite anyone interested in furthering his knowledge on the topic to scan the titles of 100 or so articles in the Journal of Clinical nutrition. Read the abstracts of a few that interest you.
Stick to what you know Brent.
1 Comment
Here are a couple of articles that relate to your issue. They and others in the Journal
speak for themselves.
Brent
________________________________________
The Science of Botanical Supplements for Human Health: A View from the NIH Botanical Research Centers
ABSTRACT
Botanical dietary supplements with a history of safe human use may not require the same level of toxicity testing as synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. Most of the documented examples of acute toxicity caused by botanical dietary supplements have been caused by the substitution of toxic plants for the desired species, probably through misidentification or production errors, or by contamination with pharmaceutical agents, either as a result of poor manufacturing practices or adulteration. Although more difficult to document, chronic toxicities attributed to botanical dietary supplements may be caused by contamination by heavy metals, pesticides, or microbes or by inherent properties of constituents of the botanicals themselves. Like drug-drug interactions, botanical-drug interactions can also be a source of toxicity. Most of these toxicity problems may be prevented by implementing good agricultural practices and good manufacturing practices and applying existing toxicity testing similar to those used in drug development or new toxicity assays under development based on proteomics, genomics, or metabolomics.
What is Known About the Dietary Nutrient Intakes of Multivitamin-Multimineral Users versus Nonusers?
ABSTRACT
Use of multivitamin-multimineral supplements is widespread and can contribute substantially to total nutrient intakes. In the Hawaii-Los Angeles Multiethnic Cohort (MEC), 48% of men and 56% of women without chronic diseases reported use of multivitamin supplements at least weekly over the past year. We calculated the prevalence of nutrient adequacy for 17 nutrients based on responses to a self-administered quantitative food-frequency questionnaire administered to MEC participants at baseline in 1993–1996. Although the prevalence of nutrient adequacy from food only was higher for multivitamin supplement users (n = 21 056) than for nonusers (n = 69 715), differences averaged only 2 percentage points. For multivitamin users, the prevalence of adequacy improved by an average of 8 percentage points for both men and women when intake from supplements was included. Users were also more likely to have potentially excessive intakes, particularly for iron, zinc, vitamin A, and niacin. The 26 735 MEC participants in Hawaii who answered an open-ended question about multivitamin use in 1999–2001 reported using 1246 different products. The nutrient profile of these products varied widely, and the composition of products at the 90th percentile was 10-fold greater than the composition at the median for some nutrients. We conclude that analyses of nutrient adequacy and excess for supplement users should be extended to national samples and that composition data on actual supplements used are preferable to assuming a default nutrient profile for multivitamin supplements. Multivitamin products could be better formulated to reduce the prevalence of inadequacy and also to reduce the risk of excessive intakes.
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