
Don’t Take Your Vitamins - ColinWright
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/dont-take-your-vitamins.html?pagewanted=all
======
relix
First of all, the author sells a book about vitamins being bad, so he's
probably not being objective about it.

I'm also biased in favor of taking daily supplements, because I take daily
supplements and don't want to feel like a fool. That said, here's some
analysis of his sources:

Most of the articles he (doesn't) link to are about harmful effects of beta-
carotene and vitamin A, which coincidentally turn out to be mostly the same
thing, just in a different form. Checking out the one article I found [1],
they gave 30mg of beta-carotene (16K UI), and 25000 UI of retinyl palmitate,
which converts to a total of 41000UI of vitamin-A, or 800% of the recommended
daily dosage.

That dosage is _insanely_ high. I have a very good "mega multi" vitamin, and
it only contains 200% of vitamin-A, because it is well known that vitamin A
and vitamin D are one of the few vitamins that are actually harmful at large
doses, and you can get poisoned/die from overdoses. It's the reason why you
don't want to eat polar bear livers. To OD on vitamin A is quite easy, with
effects being seen starting at daily 21000 UI doses. So no multivitamin pills
actually contain that high of an amount of vitamin A. I find it strange that
he's not talking about specific brands, probably because none of them contain
the high amounts that are used in the articles he talks about.

It doesn't surprise me that taking 41000 UI has adverse effects, since it's
known that this is already well over OD limits, and is especially risky for
smokers, who have a lower OD limit.

All in all, the reasons he puts forward why mega doses are bad, are not
relevant to consumer vitamin pills because the doses are not in the same
ballpark. I would also like to see the amount of lives saved because of the
pills - much like airbags and car belts, there might be people who die from
using them especially, but there might be many more people saved as well,
turning it into a net profit.

[1]:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15572756](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15572756)

~~~
latch
"First of all, the author sells a book about vitamins being bad, so he's
probably not being objective about it."

That's a cynical glass-half empty perspective. The other way to look at it is
that he might be an expert...

For example, assuming this is the same Paul Offit...you could claim that his
book on the importance of vaccination makes him non objective, which would be
a silly claim given that he's widely considered a leading expert in the field
of vaccination.

Edit:

I'm going to get a little more personal because, for some reason, your opening
line _really_ bothered me.

You're dismissing someone's opinion, in a field for which he holds an M.D.,
where he spent 25 years of his life building a vaccine against a disease which
kills 600 000 children a year . You've been barely alive for that period of
time and you've studied computer science....the guy's an expert. Doesn't make
him right...but there's no reason to disrespect him by assigning him false
motives.

~~~
relix
I'm just adding to the body of facts here. There's an almost identical article
by him in the Guardian linked below which contains a plug to his book. It
feels a lot like a marketing campaign for his book which will be released next
week.

Edit: what do any personal facts matter here? Could you please stay on-topic
and not make this about me vs him, but more about the content of his article?
On top of the logical fallacies[1][2] you're committing, I feel really creeped
out that you're posting personal details about me.

[1]: [https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-
hominem](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem)

[2]: [https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-
authority](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority)

~~~
latch
That he's "probably not being objective" isn't a fact. You opened up with the
ad-hominem, do you really not see that?

~~~
relix
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Ad_hominem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Ad_hominem)

"Conflict of Interest: Where a source seeks to convince by a claim of
authority or by personal observation, identification of conflicts of interest
are not ad hominem – it is generally well accepted that an "authority" needs
to be objective and impartial, and that an audience can only evaluate
information from a source if they know about conflicts of interest that may
affect the objectivity of the source. Identification of a conflict of interest
is appropriate, and concealment of a conflict of interest is a problem."

~~~
brown9-2
To be fair though, the author does not hide any conflict of interest - it is
stated in the footer - and the argument is made with evidence, not simply
"I've been a doctor for 25 years, listen to me!".

This is coming dangerously close to dismissing all arguments from experts
because their expertise has made them "biased" or presents a "conflict".

------
martingoodson
Paul Offit seems to be irrationally biased. In his longer guardian piece on
the same topic he is extremely selective in his referencing of the scientific
literature. This is his summary of the findings on one popular herbal
treatment for depression:

"Depression is a serious illness; to treat it, scientists have developed
medicines that alter brain chemicals such as serotonin. [...] Alternative
medicine practitioners, however, have a better idea – a more natural, safer
way to treat depression: St John's wort. Between November 1998 and January
2000, 11 academic medical centres randomly assigned 200 outpatients to receive
St John's wort or a placebo, finding no difference in any measure of
depression."

He omits the fact the same study also did NOT detect any effect of
Sertraline/Zoloft (one of the very medicines he refers to so approvingly):

"Neither hypericum nor sertraline could be differentiated from placebo on the
primary efficacy measures."

This points to a lack of statistical power in the study (which the authors of
the study acknowledge).

He also omits to mention the many studies showing st john's wort to be as
effective as SSRIs, with fewer side effects (eg see the cochrane summary here
[http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD000448/st.-johns-wort-for-
tr...](http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD000448/st.-johns-wort-for-treating-
depression.)).

I don't trust this author.

~~~
adammichaelc
The author has a pretty big conflict of interest that he doesn't disclose. He
invented one of the major vaccines, regularly consults for pharmaceutical
companies, etc. If an alternative to vaccines was found to be effective in
preventing or treating diseases, he would have much to lose.

~~~
driverdan
He would have very little to use. He helped create one vaccine. His royalties
are not _that_ significant (according to him). He'd have just as much to gain
from scientifically valid alternatives if they existed. He could do the same
as he does now (treat patients, speak, and write) with any valid disease
treatment.

------
anigbrowl
This article feels annoyingly incomplete or very poorly edited.

 _In December 1972, concerned that people were consuming larger and larger
quantities of vitamins, the F.D.A. announced a plan to regulate vitamin
supplements containing more than 150 percent of the recommended daily
allowance. Vitamin makers would now have to prove that these “megavitamins”
were safe before selling them. Not surprisingly, the vitamin industry saw this
as a threat, and set out to destroy the bill. In the end, it did far more than
that.

Industry executives recruited William Proxmire, a Democratic senator from
Wisconsin, to introduce a bill preventing the F.D.A. from regulating
megavitamins. On Aug. 14, 1974, the hearing began.

Speaking in support of F.D.A. regulation was Marsha Cohen, a lawyer with the
Consumers Union. Setting eight cantaloupes in front of her, she said, “You
would need to eat eight cantaloupes — a good source of vitamin C — to take in
barely 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C. But just these two little pills, easy to
swallow, contain the same amount.” She warned that if the legislation passed,
“one tablet would contain as much vitamin C as all of these cantaloupes, or
even twice, thrice or 20 times that amount. And there would be no protective
satiety level.” Ms. Cohen was pointing out the industry’s Achilles’ heel:
ingesting large quantities of vitamins is unnatural, the opposite of what
manufacturers were promoting.

A little more than a month later, Mr. Proxmire’s bill passed by a vote of 81
to 10. In 1976, it became law. Decades later, Peter Barton Hutt, chief counsel
to the F.D.A., wrote that “it was the most humiliating defeat” in the agency’s
history._

Well, what more did the industry do than destroy the bill? After making such a
strong clear case for regulation, how did the bill forbidding it pass with
such an overwhelming majority? Were there payoffs, or was it something the
vitamin makers said in testimony, or did they gin up a massive publicity
campaign, or what? I'm quite frustrated at how little information this article
contains.

On the plus side, I'm glad that I've stuck to getting my vitamins from food
rather than supplements.

~~~
dm2
Why hasn't this issue been revisited in congress? Shouldn't everything be
revisited very X years to ensure that the law is still relevant with current
information?

~~~
eli
The are a great many laws I would prefer the current Congress _not_ revisit.

~~~
dm2
I see your point and it's an unfortunate situation.

Shouldn't our representatives be the smartest and most upstanding citizens
available? How do we make that a reality?

I found a few sites similar to these:

www.popvox.com

www.opencongress.org/bill/all

------
DanBC
The article gives calm, sensible advice.

It misses the importance of (normal quantities of) Vitamin D. Many people live
in places where they're unlikely to get correct amounts of Vitamin D,
especially because of the (correct) caution about sun exposure and the move
away from dairy fats.

For those people a Vitamin D supplement is a good idea.

Also, women wanting to become pregnant should strongly consider folate
supplements.

And children probably need (correct child dose) multivitamins up until about 4
or 5 years old.

EDIT: Some sources.

UK National Health Service: ([http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-
baby/pages/vitami...](http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-
baby/pages/vitamins-for-children.aspx)) - notice how it stresses the
importance of healthy diet, but also advises for Vitamin D supplements.

Scotland: Warning over Vitamin D levels ([http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
scotland-11355810](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11355810))

~~~
codersteve
It's simple enough to get a test for deficiencies, then take the specific
supplements you need, if you need them.

~~~
shabble
Is it simple like a urine pregnancy/drug screen test that gives quantitative
recommendations?

Or is it more like arrange with your doctor to draw some blood, have it
tested, then get an expert appraisal of the results which recommends a set of
supplements?

Either way, it should probably be done periodically, to account for changes in
diet and personal circumstances.

I wonder if this is something that personalised medicine could start with -- A
machine which combines the blood analyser, expert system for determining
requirements, and a set of dispensers that load the exact quantities into
capsules while you wait. Ideally it'd work with something like a glucose test
finger-prick sample, but I have no idea how much blood you need to run some of
the more complex blood analyses.

~~~
codersteve
>>Is it simple like a urine pregnancy/drug screen test that gives quantitative
recommendations?

Not that I know of, you have to get blood drawn.

>>A machine which combines the blood analyser

Yea, that would help a lot.

------
pdevr
All the referenced studies (none of them are behind a paywall):

The Beta-Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial: incidence of lung cancer and
cardiovascular disease mortality during 6-year follow-up after stopping beta-
carotene and retinol supplements.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15572756](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15572756)

Antioxidant supplements for prevention of gastrointestinal cancers: a
systematic review and meta-analysis.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15464182](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15464182)

Meta-analysis: high-dosage vitamin E supplementation may increase all-cause
mortality

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15537682](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15537682)

Effects of long-term vitamin E supplementation on cardiovascular events and
cancer: a randomized controlled trial.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15769967](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15769967)

Multivitamin use and risk of prostate cancer in the National Institutes of
Health-AARP Diet and Health Study.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17505071](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17505071)

Antioxidant supplements for prevention of mortality in healthy participants
and patients with various diseases.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18425980](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18425980)

Dietary supplements and mortality rate in older women: the Iowa Women's Health
Study
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21987192](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21987192)

Effect of Hypericum perforatum (St John's Wort) in Major Depressive Disorder A
Randomized Controlled Trial
[http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=194814](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=194814)

------
fauigerzigerk
Interestingly, the opposite is true for vitamin D. For years, study after
study shows that most people are severely deficient in vitamin D and that
supplementation helps. Yet, officially recommended doses are way below the
levels that scientists recommend.

~~~
relix
And importantly, a lot of countries do have laws against mega doses, causing
pills with more than 150% of RDA to be illegal, making it really hard to get a
decent supplementation, especially during winter.

~~~
PommeDeTerre
In a case like that, what prevents somebody from taking more than one pill at
the same time, if one pill alone is insufficient?

~~~
relix
Nothing, but it becomes quite expensive.

------
raverbashing
Ok, what looked liked a passable article shows some new things:

"The likely explanation is that free radicals aren’t as evil as advertised.
(In fact, people need them to kill bacteria and eliminate new cancer cells.)
And when people take large doses of antioxidants in the form of supplemental
vitamins, the balance between free radical production and destruction might
tip too much in one direction, causing an unnatural state where the immune
system is less able to kill harmful invaders. Researchers call this the
antioxidant paradox.""

I wouldn't be worried at 150% vitamin dosages, worry if it's 1000% of the
daily dosage (and some people take huge doses of Vitamin C with no major side
effects. But if you do that with Vitamin A, yes, this could be very
troublesome)

------
pron
Not taking one side or the other, it's important to note that when it comes to
nutrition, we know very little. Or rather, we know many disparate facts but
very little about how they interact. The reason is that there are very few
good "unit tests" for human physiology, and we're not even sure about what
_they_ really mean (for example, current research suggests that what we
thought we knew about the significance of blood cholesterol levels might be
wrong). And if all we have are "integration tests" (like mortality rates), the
number of variables affecting them becomes so huge, that in order to get truly
statistically significant results we would need to conduct randomized trials
on very big populations. Add the difficulty of conducting a double-blind
randomized nutrition trial even on a small population, and you get results
that have little actual "results" (although a randomized double-blind trial
with vitamin pills is possible).

When John Ioannidis proved that most published medical research is false[1],
he singled out genetics and nutrition[2] as the two most problematic fields,
where very, very few findings are true. The fact is that we know alarmingly
little about what constitutes a healthy diet. Let me clarify: we know hardly
anything about significant difference in total health one relatively "normal"
diet has over another. Ioannidis's advice: completely ignore any nutritional
"scientific" claims because they are anything but. Any supposed claims for
"healthy" eating are no more than wishful thinking, pseudoscience and good-old
snake-oil salesmanship.

What is interesting from a scientific point of view, and this is one subject
we know a lot more about than actual nutrition, is _why_ people who are
otherwise scientific minded skeptics are superstitious when it comes to
nutrition (if you believe that eating more green vegetable or less, consuming
more vitamin C or less, more saturated fat or less is actually better for you,
then you are superstitious, unless you are knowingly placing a scientifically
unfounded bet on one diet over another).

Obviously, the well-known psychology of magical thinking applies to everyone,
and even skeptics are not immune to it (Charles Darwin, if one anecdote about
him is correct, quite amazingly identified the effect magical thinking had on
his own research, and took measures to counteract it). But why is food such a
focus of superstition among skeptics? It probably has to do with their
political leaning.

Jonathan Haidt hypothesizes that the value of "purity" is ingrained in human
existence, and every society seeks to fill it with particular meaning[3].
Because liberals wholly reject giving "purity" sexual or racial content, they
choose to purify themselves through health, and in particular, food. It seems
that people have such a strong desire to feel pure, that those that cannot
achieve it through religious means, try to achieve it with food. And because
food is, after all, subject to scientific study (though mostly bogus), it
gives that little something to grab onto and construct magical thinking
around.

Consider this if you don't believe me: pick one scientific nutritional finding
that you particularly like, and have chosen to adhere to. Let's suppose that
the finding is true as published. Now, look at what statistical effect-size
that particular research claims your chosen diet has. For example, by how much
does it prolong life? 10%? 5%? 3%? Or by how much does it reduce the risk of
getting a particular form of cancer? Does it take it from 1/100 to 1/10000?
Or, perhaps, from 1/1000 to 1/1200?

Now think if in other areas of life, such effect-sizes would change your
behavior as much.

Theres definitely a lot of psychology when it comes to people's diets.
Science? Not so much.

[1]
[http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal...](http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)

[2] [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-
dam...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-
and-medical-science/308269/)

[3]
[http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.ht...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html)

~~~
nopinsight
What counts as scientific evidence has fairly high standard. What we know may
not reach that level of rigor, but isn't it still a bit more than 'very
little'.

If, say, it's 80% (rather than 95%) likely that eating more than 4 servings of
fruits and vegetables per day helps reduce your chance of having
cardiovascular diseases by 35%, and you don't mind the food group anyway, why
shouldn't you try?

In any case, there are very few (or no?) studies that say eating a lot of
vegetables and fruits (within reason) will cause you health problems.

A principle of entrepreneurship is that whenever a bet yields either positive
or neutral results, you should do it. Why shouldn't this principle be applied
to such an important area as our health and wellness?

~~~
pron
There's actually evidence to support that eating fruit is quite detrimental to
your health, as modern fruit contain so much sugar. What are you eating fruits
for? Water? Vitamins you can get from meat anyway? A lot of people say fruits
are bad for you.

Now, I'm not saying you should or shouldn't do one thing or another when it
comes to nutrition. All I'm saying is you should be aware that it's little
more than superstition and magical thinking. It's very hard to resist magical
thinking, but it's often good to know when you're doing it. Sometimes doing
things with your eyes open is better than doing them with your eyes shut.
Although in this case I'm not 100% sure about that: there's clearly a lot of
(positive) placebo effect at the cause of many anecdotal reports about
nutrition, and knowing that it's mostly superstition may negate it.

~~~
alanctgardner2
OK, this is a pretty ridiculous claim. Other people have already pointed out,
"There's actually evidence" requires some evidence. You have none.

Why would modern fruit contain "more sugar"? More sugar than when? How much
more sugar? Who miraculously put the extra sugar in the fruit? The fact is,
even if we selectively bred fruit to be sweeter, we're not going to get it
much sweeter than it already was. Nobody's going around injecting apples with
extra fructose with a syringe.

Getting all your vitamins from meat is ridiculously inefficient; you can do
it, but you're creating a tremendous ecological burden. All of that meat has
to be raised, fed, watered, and pastured. Fruits and vegetables cut out the
middle man; they use much less water and land to get the same nutrients into
your body.

It's fine to say that 'magical thinking' is bad, but you're not doing any
better. If anything you're ignoring facts based science in favour of 'what
some people say'.

~~~
eru
> Why would modern fruit contain "more sugar"? More sugar than when? How much
> more sugar? Who miraculously put the extra sugar in the fruit?

Selective breeding, of course. Modern vegetables are, in general, less bitter
than in earlier times. Fruits are often sweeter---and easier to farm
industrially and bring to market. Also, we live off less different kinds of
fruit and vegetables than in earlier times. There used to be hundreds of
different apples in widespread use for examples.

Not saying that it's necessarily bad. Just that pron's hypothetical argument
isn't actually all that hypothetical.

~~~
beagle3
> Modern vegetables are, in general, less bitter than in earlier times.

That does not necessarily mean more sugar - it just means less bitter. (These
axes are independent).

Selective breeding puts pressure on easy-to-grow-and-sell (shelf life, size,
shape, resistance to pests) and only afterwards on flavor.

And another important (and often forgotten) point about modern frutis and
vegetables is that they are mostly picked when green (when not all sugar has
ripened yet), and then chemically ripened in a process that does not yield as
much sugar as natural ripening.

I would like a reference before I believe that today's fruits and vegetable
contain more sugar than those of 50 years ago.

~~~
eru
Oh, sure, wasn't meant as a reference, but just some evidence that it's not
totally implausible.

~~~
beagle3
This is very loose wording. "Evidence" this is not. It is an argument
supporting an idea, which is still therefore hypothetical.

------
emanuer
I really would like to have links to the studies mentioned, the most
interesting one I could find is:

[http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=205797](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=205797)
— 2007, Cited by 1214

    
    
      Treatment with beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E may increase mortality. 
      The potential roles of vitamin C and selenium on mortality need further study
    

Who would have guessed eating too much of something could be bad for your
health</sarcasm>

------
ekianjo
Somebody should tell Kurzweil about this. "Kurzweil does not believe in half
measures. He takes 180 to 210 vitamin and mineral supplements a day, so many
that he doesn't have time to organize them all himself."
[http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzwei...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/16-04/ff_kurzweil?currentPage=all)

------
gbog
About these supplementary pills I think the advice of Taleb is very good:

\- When there is a very strong reason to medicate or do surgery, do it
immediately.

\- When it is just for convenience, don't do it. The long term risks are
unknown.

His diet advice is "don't ingerate anything that has been invented in the last
50 or 100 years", so wine: yes, Coke: no, vitamin pills: no, etc.

However in case of a cancer with a very bad diagnostic, he would try even the
newest unverified cure.

I think this advice should be heard in the US where so many people seem to
fill their stomack with aliments that did not exist 50 years ago (processed
food, chocolate bars, soda, pills being the worst).

(I am rephrasing)

~~~
patrickk
Can you link to where he says that? I'd like to read more, it sounds
interesting.

Also, coke (both the drug and the soft drink) is well over 50 years old, but I
understand the point you're getting at with being wary of consuming substances
that are not well understood.

On a side note, some people who argue in favour of legalising cannabis are
also argue in favour of legalising cocaine, as they reckon keeping it illegal
does more damage than legalising it (Mexican cartels). In places like Bolivia,
people chew coca leaves as a natural stimulant (cocaine comes from processed
coca leaves). I'm not sure where I stand on legalising cocaine though, I can
see two sides to the argument.

~~~
gbog
I read this in his Antifragile book.

~~~
patrickk
Thanks, I've been thinking about buying it, this gives me the excuse I need
:-)

------
contingencies
Ahh, yes! The further we go from nature, the more problems we create for
ourselves. The Taoists are right.

~~~
wturner
A taoist would say that everything is "natural" , including man-made vitamins,
cars and chemical plastics.

~~~
contingencies
Ancient Taoism, ie. the real deal, emphasized living as simplistically as
possible and eschewed such novelties. It later became politicized as a court
tradition around the emperors of Ancient China, and underwent significant
modification. It is this latter period from which much of the surviving
literature derives - a common historical trajectory to most ancient
philosophies.

------
andyjohnson0
The Guardian recently ran an article on the same subject:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/07/vitamins-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/07/vitamins-
stop-taking-the-pills)

Its longer than the NYT article and contains some interesting links to
clinical trial results.

~~~
joe76
It's written by the same author!

------
mark_l_watson
It is nearly impossible to know definitively what to eat, but it seems like a
reasonable approach is to: eat lots of organic vegetables, some organic fruit,
limit meat intake, and perhaps take some vitamins.

It drives my wife crazy (because she is pro-vitamins) when I take specific
vitamins just 2 or 3 times a week. I have a weekly pill dispenser and I
randomly put in 2 or 3 each of vitamins E/D/C, and Coq10, calcium, magnesium,
etc.

My thinking is that we evolved as hunter gatherers and we would not get the
same nutrition every day, so why not mix it up a bit in modern times? I am
fairly sure that I get what I need from my diet (I am a card-carrying food
junkie; my food web site: [http://cookingspace.com](http://cookingspace.com))
but taking small random amounts of vitamins during the week maybe helps. Who
knows. I think that it is as important how you eat (i.e., eat very slowly,
appreciate the food) as what you eat.

~~~
driverdan
> eat lots of organic vegetables, some organic fruit

"Organic" is an unscientific ideological term. It has absolutely nothing to do
with the nutritional quality of food. Study after study has shown "organic"
food to be nutritionally equivalent to scientifically farmed food, including
quantities of pesticides found on them.

(Yes, citation needed but I don't have refs in front of me right now)

~~~
mark_l_watson
You should talk with my pet Parrot. If we give him non-organic food, he
doesn't much like it. My wife and I agree: organic tastes better. I can not
scientifically vouch for it being better for you, but I am very certain that
it tastes better.

My Dad is a member of the National Academy of Science and he used to roll out
the "no proof" argument. My argument, which he eventually accepted and he now
eats organic:

1\. it really does taste better

2\. what can it hurt to eat locally grown organic food? Is it worth a small
amount of extra money, just in case it is better to eat food not grown with
petroleum fertilizer?

Anyway, make up your own mind.

------
ck2
I used to get really bad headaches like every other day.

One extra busy and strange week I forgot to take my multivitamin a few days in
a row.

And it dawned on me my headaches went away.

Now I've stopped taking my multivitamin for a year and I've only had headaches
I can count on one hand.

Tried another brand multivitamin and same headache problem happened so I'm
done with that.

~~~
eru
I wonder whether it was a specific component, and if yes, which.

~~~
ck2
That was my thinking too but there are so many things in them, doing it
scientifically would be quite a feat and not sure how to go about it.

For all I know it might even be the inert compound binding it.

~~~
relix
Might be the Vitamin B, anecdotally I've heard some people getting headaches
from high doses of it.

~~~
vidarh
It is one of the known possible side-effects of vitamin B3, but I have no idea
how common or at what doses.

------
just2n
> Please log in.

Can we do something about paywalled links here, please? This is the 5th one on
the front page today.

~~~
ColinWright
Perhaps someone can help you with that, but I'm not logged in, have never
logged in, don't intend to register, and don't get the "Please log in"
message.

I wonder what's different between your setup and mine.

~~~
just2n
_In order to access our Web site, your Web browser must accept cookies from
NYTimes.com._

In that case, I have no interest in any of their articles.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Why are you afraid of cookies? The cookie monster, maybe. But cookies, no!

I use Firefox. In Firefox it's easy to "clear history when Firefox closes".
That includes cookies.

So all you do to be as close to anonymous as possible is: 1) set FF to clear
cookies on close (this is my default) 2) close FF 3) open FF, go to
nytimes.com 4) when done reading, close FF

That's it. All my cookies get deleted before and after I use the web site. I
fail to see _any_ harm in allowing the Times to set as many cookies as they
want to for the duration of my browsing session with them. I even allow third
party cookies. I don't care, they're all gone as soon as I exit my browser.
BTW to combat sleazier sites I also use the Better Privacy addon. That can
easily be set to clear out Flash cookies every time the browser exits.

One other thing. Use NoScript. Don't whitelist NY Times. Then you will _never_
be bothered in the slightest by their paywall; it relies on JS.

~~~
shocks
A private browsing window is another solution to this problem. I use it
frequently! :)

------
dm2
So... should I take a daily multivitamin or not?

~~~
shin_lao
No, you should have a balanced diet instead.

~~~
dm2
Hypothetically, let's assume that I don't eat vegetables but once a week.
Should I take a multivitamin daily?

~~~
shin_lao
Why do you eat so little vegetables?

------
baby
For most people who eat correctly, taking Vitamins is more of a placebo than
anything. I tried to start the discussion about it in scientific subreddits
many times and got shut down. Vitamins are used way more than homeopathy and
do works in many cases so it's hard for people to understand that it doesn't
do anything, and might actually harm you if you take too much, if you're
eating normally already (well in most cases).

------
javiermares
For what it's worth, regarding the multivitamin and prostate cancer study:
[http://www.rayandterry.com/blog/prostate-cancer-and-
vitamin-...](http://www.rayandterry.com/blog/prostate-cancer-and-vitamin-use/)

------
6d0debc071
This is a bit disingenuous.

Top title: 'Don’t Take Your Vitamins'

Base : 'As a result, consumers don’t know that taking __megavitamins__ [...]'

♫♫ One of these things is not like the others. ♫♫

If the advice is just don't mega-dose the things, well - duh. The things even
have warnings to that effect:

[http://i.imgur.com/5bS4gl2.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/5bS4gl2.jpg)

Right there on the tube - 'do not exceed the recommended daily dose.'

I take that advice to be fairly uncontroversial. Lots of things are going to
kill you if you take too much of them. Just don't be a bit silly and expose
your body to really high levels of things that it'd never get anywhere near in
nature without doing the research first.

I suspect that people don't think it's particularly risky because it's so
concentrated - if they had to sit down and eat their way through packets of
much less concentrated pills maybe they'd start to worry about loading their
systems with so much stuff. :/ -shrug-

------
uokyas
oh New York Times, always a fine reading in the Sunday morning, in fact very
interesting. Just to show what lobbyist and the private sector are willing to
do, in order to stay in business.

------
edem
So should I take vitamins or not?

------
corresation
The vitamins that most take provides fractional amounts of the RDA -- at most
100% (e.g. Centrum, etc.) -- and is truly intended to be an offset of an
imperfect diet. Using the case of mega-doses, especially against compromised
peoples, as the demonstration of the dangers of normal supplementation is
dishonest, just as it wouldn't be reasonable to discourage water consumption
through the example of someone consuming tens of gallons a day.

I am not speaking of this specific author, a very respected researcher,
however there are many who essentially make bank on the anti-vitamin bandwagon
(never underestimate the motivation of getting broadly quoted and referenced,
which is a likely outcome when you "prove" counter-intuitive conclusions), and
the techniques are often highly dubious.

One of the most common tactics to discourage vitamin use is to compare the
mortality of general vitamin supplementation users and those who don't,
ignoring the _immense_ self-selection bias that comes into play. Namely that
people in compromised health or at risk often flock to vitamins -- wrongly --
as a snake-oil fix for ailments, thus providing plenty of data in the
"mortality" side.

I take the odd multi-vitamin, primarily on days where I know I've eaten
terribly. I do supplement Omega 3s daily.

~~~
300bps
I used to take daily Centrum. Had a few years where my liver enzymes (AST/ALT)
were elevated. Doctor asked if i took a multivitamin to which I told her I
did. She said stop taking it. That was about 8 years ago and I haven't had an
elevated liver enzyme test since then. She said some people have a really hard
time processing all those vitamins in their system and it hurts their liver.

Now I just take Vitamin D (tested as mildly deficient) and Omega 3 from krill.

~~~
corresation
Makes sense, especially given the fluorescent yellow urine that often comes
shortly after taking a vitamin (the liver/kidneys working hard to eliminate
something, which is telling enough). It seems like vitamins would be improved
to come in smaller, multiple-doses (though that becomes less convenient) --
the one I occasionally take is dosed as two pills through the day to hit the
100% mark, and it has removed the nuclear pee response -- or slowed delay,
etc.

~~~
vidarh
The fluorescent yellow is usually specifically due to high doses of vitamin
B2, and is because vitamin B2 is orange. It's not by itself an indication of a
problem.

Some of the B-vitamins can have nasty side effects in huge doses, but those
doses are _far_ above the RDA for most people.

EDIT: Note that "huge doses" are still within range of quite a few "megadosed"
vitamin supplements. I've experienced annoying side-effects from vitamin B's
as a lot of pre-exercise products have high doses as it is believed to have an
effect on energy levels (I don't know if the science stacks up or not), but
"neon pee" occurs with very low doses of B2 and is by no means an indicator
you'll run into any of the other side effects.

------
Hyrum_Graff
Read Ben Goldacre's Bad Pharma. [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Pharma-companies-
mislead-patient...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Pharma-companies-mislead-
patients/dp/0007350740)

