FAYE FLAM: The unfortunate truth about vitamins and your health
'Scientific studies started to show that food was not nearly as dangerous as thought, and that vitamin and mineral supplements could do harm'
Proponents of science-based medicine are fond of saying that there’s a name for alternative treatments that pass scientific tests: medicine. But what they don’t mention are those parts of long-established medicine that get demoted to “alternative” status — or should be. For years, doctors pestered me — and apparently many other people — to take a daily multivitamin and a calcium supplement. There was nothing wrong with me; doctors said it was a kind of insurance. The calcium was to protect against fractures, and the multivitamin … well, the doctors were never too clear on that, but they were adamant. And now, Kaiser Health News is reporting that most older Americans are “hooked” on vitamins. The story, which ran in the New York Times, detailed a litany of scientific studies showing vitamin supplements either failed to deliver benefits or caused harm. Experts quoted in the story presented all this as if consumers were buying into some egregious form of pseudoscientific quackery — as...
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