Over half of American adults take supplements. Some take prodigious amounts. This can be a bad idea. One paper in The New England Journal of Medicine estimated that supplements are responsible for 23,000 emergency room visits a year, often because of liver damage.
A few supplements have their place. Women who are trying to
have a baby benefit from folic acid. People who have been shown to be deficient
in vitamin D, vitamin B12, and omega-3s may also benefit from these supplements.
This may be particularly true for old people who are not getting enough sunlight
and/or their diets are lacking in such foods as fatty fish, plant oils, or
certain seeds and nuts.
As to boosting longevity, no large clinical trials have
shown that supplements extend human life span.
The supplements market has been described as having a “wild
west” nature. Unlike medicines, supplements do not require FDA approval before
they can be sold. Also, what’s on the bottle’s label might not match what’s
inside the pill. One study of supplements found that, for the majority, the
amount of the ingredient shown on the label differed from the actual amount—in some
instances by as much as 100 percent.
Some supplements have been found to include lead, arsenic
and mercury. Researchers at the University of Michigan estimated that 15
million American adults take a supplement, such as turmeric or red yeast rice, that
could potentially cause liver toxicity.
I’ve taken supplements
in the past. I don’t anymore.
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
No comments:
Post a Comment