Vitamin Pills: A False Hope?

Just in 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.

Last year, a study that tracked almost 15,000 male physicians for a decade reported no differences in...
MORE HERE

Interesting note. The piece comments:

"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 Dr. Heidi's song for 10 years. Synthetic, or isolated nutrients are not as effective as the whole food based multis, which are more able to be used by the body. Because they come in a more recognized, i.e. not "foreign" form. That's why she designed the Pops (the whole food multi WFN offers) and that's one reason the Pops won the Vitamin of 2008 award form Kitchen Table Medicine.

Children with 'Mountain Dew Mouth'

"A child in Central Appalachia...No 1 in the nation in toothlessness. According to dentists, one of the main cultpirts is Mountain Dew soda. With 50 percent more caffeine than Coke or Pepsi, Mountain Dew seems to be used as a kind of anti-depressant for children in the hills. More...

(The video above is available on the More link above.)

Anyone else need a reason to kick the daily soda habit?

One alternative: Kombucha (can get in health food stores). Others you've found?

F.D.A. Finds ‘Natural’ Diet Pills Spiked With Drugs

Just in from the New York Times...

Grady Jackson, a defensive tackle with the Atlanta Falcons, said he used the weight-loss capsules. Kathie Lee Gifford was enthusiastic about them on the “Today” show. Retailers like GNC and the Vitamin Shoppe sold them, no prescription required.

But the Food and Drug Administration now says those weight-loss capsules, called StarCaps and promoted as natural dietary supplements using papaya, could be hazardous to your health. In violation of the law, the agency has found, the capsules also contained a potent pharmaceutical drug called bumetanide which can have serious side effects.

And StarCaps are not the only culprits....MORE
PDF here in case.

Weight loss through eating fat burning and cleaner foods, anyone?

The Quality of Calories: What Makes Us Fat and Why Nobody Seems to Care

Ready to shift your paradigm about obesity and overweight?

Here's a wonderful, academic, and revolutionary lecture by Gary Taubes, author of the book phenom, Bad Calories Good Calories here. Given at UC Berkeley School of Public Health and co-sponsored by the School of Journalism.

Taubes' book provides the most recent and most comprehensive research support for the one of the four principles - low carb - of Dr. Heidi's ER Fat Burn Formula.