Are Vitamin Pills A False Hope?

From the New York Times:

Today about half of all adults use some form of dietary supplement, at a cost of $23 billion a year.

But are vitamins worth it? In the past few years, several high-quality studies have failed to show that extra vitamins, at least in pill form, help prevent chronic disease or prolong life.

The latest news came last week after researchers in the Women’s Health Initiative study tracked eight years of multivitamin use among more than 161,000 older women. Despite earlier findings suggesting that multivitamins might lower the risk for heart disease and certain cancers, the study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found no such benefit.

Here's what else they found:

Last year, a study that tracked almost 15,000 male physicians for a decade reported no differences in cancer or heart disease rates among those using vitamins E and C compared with those taking a placebo. And in October, a study of 35,000 men dashed hopes that high doses of vitamin E and selenium could lower the risk of prostate cancer.

Interesting. The piece continues:

Everyone needs vitamins, which are essential nutrients that the body can't produce on its own. Inadequate vitamin C leads to scurvy, for instance, and a lack of vitamin D can cause rickets.

But says one researcher, "Why are we taking a reductionist approach and plucking out one or two chemicals given in isolation?"

This has been the song of Dr. Heidi Dulay for over ten years. Synthetic or isolated nutrients are not effective and may do more harm than good. Your body is not designed to take synthetic (man-made) vitamins, regards them as toxins, and tries to get rid of them as fast as possible. They speed up the aging process, rob your body of energy and water, and provide expensive color to your urine.

That's why she designed The Pops™, a multivitamin made from food. It's also the reason why The Pops™ won an award for Best Whole Food Multi of 2008.

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