Back to Health - Vitamins, Herbs, Studies, and Anecdotal Evidence

This will be a very brief summary of things to look for (or look out for) when thinking of adding supplements to your diet.  Things to consider include how much and which ones to take, are they natural or synthetic, whether to take them every day or cycle them, and what added ingredients are in the supplement.

Anecdotal Evidence vs Studies 

When determining which supplements I would take, I used both types of evidence, but mostly anecdotal, because studies can be flawed, and many times are, depending on who is doing the study.  Many times studies are done backwards - they know before hand the result they want to show, and then design the study to get that result.  For example, a recent study about multivitamins was done using Centrum.  The study showed it was not effective for what it was being tested for.  Rather than saying Centrum was not good for the problem, they said multivitamins were no good.  Centrum is owned by Pfizer, a drug company.  It is in Pfizer's best interest, and other drug companies, too, to get you off things that may keep you healthy so you will need to take their drugs.  Besides having very low amounts of vitamins, here are some other ingredients in one of their multivitamins:

If you do this Google search (centrum ingredients label) you can see their ingredients.

What's in their multivtamins???  Artificial colors, preservatives, synthetic vitamin E, some chemicals I have no idea of what they are, aluminum, ground up rock (talc, which according to "A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives," "there are suspicions of it being a cancer causing agent upon ingestion."  Side note:  I used to camp out at Death Valley over Easter break from school, and we explored an old talc mine - nice and cool inside, lots of cave-ins as talc is pretty soft rock, and pretty white in color, too - reminded me of what Moon dust looked like on the floor of the cave), etc.  I would be surprised if this formula didn't cause health problems.

Recommended daily values are what you need to prevent deficiencies.  They are not likely optimal amounts.  The point is that studies can use whatever design they want to get the results they want, supposedly using a scientific approach.

Anecdotal, on the other hand, is basically someone (or perhaps thousands of people) reporting that something they took worked for the problem they were taking it for.  It may not be scientific, but it has worked well for me, either in combination with studies, or by itself.  For example, Gingko and Ginseng have been taken for thousands of years, and both have been shown through anecdotal evidence to have certain benefits.

Everyone is different - what works for me may not work for you.  It may work for most people, some people, or few people.  It may take a long time to get the benefits, or a short time.  Supplements are not meant to replace a healthy diet, they are meant to SUPPLEMENT a healthy diet, and to fill in things that may be missing from your diet.

A word about herbs - they should be cycled on and off.  Perhaps 5 days on and 2 off, or 6 and 1, or 3 weeks on and one week off, etc., depending on the herb.  They will work better that way, and be less likely to have any negative effect.  My multivitamin has some herbs in it, so I cycle them.  For me, with the exception of calcium, magnesium, and vitamin C, I pretty much cycle all my supplements.  

My past experiences with diet and supplements would be anecdotal evidence.  For example, before changing my diet from terrible (I mean really terrible, but had no idea at the time that diet affected health) to healthy (to get rid of ulcer and nervous stomach), and then adding supplements (to address other health issues), I used to get pretty much everything that was going around - 4 colds a year, plus the flu, bronchitis, stomach viruses, etc.  I thought this was normal.  If people told me that one day I would only get sick once every several years, I would not have believed them.  But now, I do only get sick once every several years, and it has been a few years since last catching anything.  No studies were done on me (LOL), and I have done no studies.  So this is anecdotal evidence - which works for me very well.

If these thoughts make sense to you, and you want to be healthy, please share this with your family and friends.  And if you want to look and feel your best, so you can get your best photos to share with everyone you know, make the changes to go to health.  And finally, if you haven't made the change to your health yet, get some photos done now, then go to health, and in two years get some new photos of the new you and see the difference!