I recently found an article talking about how some long term clinical trials were done in regards to vitamins. They had middle aged men taking Vitamins C and E to ward off cardiovascular disease and women taking Vitamin D and Calcium to decrease breast cancer. What they found? That those vitamins weren’t doing their job. There were still the same rates of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease in the controlled group and the placebo group.
There was this one quote in there that was great though…Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence. I had to read that one a couple times to get it through my head exactly what the doctor was saying…its a little convoluted and I didn’t get much sleep last night. Basically this doctor was saying ‘let’s not leap to conclusions here.’
I totally agree. As I was reading this article, my first thought lept to ‘oh my god its a pharmaceutical company conspiracy to show that vitamins aren’t effective!’ Let’s face it…pharmaceutical companies can’t patent vitamins and supplements because they’re naturally occurring. The only way they could is if they maybe developed some special concontion of a cholesterol drug coupled with omega-3 or something. Who knows. Since I’m not a huge conspiracy theorist person, I quickly dropped that (though I think the do publish biased studies).
Then the second thought that occurred to my groggy mind was…”I wonder how many of these people live healthy lives? Eat a well balanced diet?” We’ve grown up thinking the last couple decades that a magic pill will save us from all ailments. Think of all the medical commercials or ads in magazines we’ve seen with the smiley face bouncing around happy because it had the green pill that day.
We cannot and should not think vitamin C alone…or coupled with vitamin E…will save us either. Can it help? Yes, it is better than nothing. They tell us to eat fresh veggies and fruits for a reason…to help us get all those vitamins and supplements. In addition, a diet consisting of fresh foods help us get vitamins, minerals, and other enzymes in proper amounts. Omega-3, for example, is most effective in combination with high amounts of anti-oxidants (like vitamin C and E). To get these essential components properly into the cells of our body, the right transporters and signals must aid them to get to the nucleus of each cell. Vitamin C by itself (especially a more synthetic brand) may not have the proper enzymes necessary to start of this chain reaction, therefore, much of the vitamin C ingested may be excreted. Hope I made sense here.
Also…you cannot rely on vitamins, supplements, and minerals by themselves to make a person healthy. We can take all the best vitamins in the world and spend lots of money, but if our diets consist of McDonald’s and Burger King, we’re undoing all the good work we’re trying to do. Many of the chemicals found in our foods (HFCS, phthalates, aspartame, or read just any ingredient label from the frozen food section) work against nature and the natural biochemical processes that must occur in our body to make sure everything is working properly.
Similarly…proper exercise is necessary. Now…I know most of us hate this part of life. The dreaded exercise routine. Since we aren’t hunters and gatherers anymore or running away from sabre-tooth tigers and other predators, we need exercise. I think humans are the only mammals that make themselves overweight and unhealthy. I just look at my cats to a good example of this. When they sleep all day, what do they do at night? Go ape*%&t. Drake, the little black and white one we have, is a prime example of insanity. Not only does he run around the house like a fiend, but we’ve found him leaping in the air after his tail, climbing and doing circles around his cat house, and even scrapping with the dog. When he’s not getting enough exercise, he just goes crazy and does it himself. When humans don’t get enough exercise…we keep our butts right on the couch watching another episode of American Idol.
I’ll also let our dog be another example of excess energy. When she doesn’t get enough exercise (like this weekend when we drove to South Bend for a wedding), she drives us crazy. She’s hyper and essentially…nuts. She needs some good walking or treadmill time to help drain her energy.
So the moral of my story here…vitamins are not a magic pill either. Yes, they will help…in conjunction with a balanced diet and exercise.
