The (Lack of) Benefits of Supplements

Most supplements don’t have any evidence of the benefits touted

One of the more common questions is whether I recommend any supplements. I recommend very few of them. For longer fasts, I recommend a general multivitamin, although there is scant evidence that it is beneficial. In fact, almost all vitamin supplements have been proven to be useless. In some cases, like vitamin B, worse than useless. All vitamins go through periods of of popularity and unpopularity. It’s worse than high school. One minute, you’re the most popular kid in class, then next you’re the laughingstock.

In the 1960’s the king of vitamins was vitamin C. Linus Pauling is the only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes — once for chemistry and once for peace. He had the firm unshakeable belief that many of the problems of modern nutrition could be cured by mega doses of vitamin C. He suggested that high dose vitamin C could prevent or cure the common cold, the flu and even cancer. He even suggested that “75% of all cancer can be prevented and cured by vitamin C alone”. That, of course is wildly optimistic. Many studies were done over the next few decades that clearly proved that most of these vitamin C claims were simply false hopes. Turns out the only disease Vitamin C cures is scurvy. Since I don’t treat many 15th century pirates, it’s not too useful for me.

Once vitamin C supplementation was proven largely useless to prevent disease, the next great hope was vitamin E. Its main claim to glory was as an ‘antioxidant’. Supposedly, vitamin E would neutralize all the nasty free radicals that were causing untold damage to our vascular system. Taking vitamin E would prevent heart disease, we were told. Except, of course, it did nothing of the sort. The HOPE trial, best remembered now as one of the trials to establish the use of the ACEI class of medication in cardiovascular protection. However, this randomized controlled trial also tested whether vitamin E could prevent disease. Unfortunately, the answer was no. Vitamin E supplements did not prevent heart disease or stroke. Indeed, more patients in the vitamin group died, had heart attacks and strokes although this was not statistically significant. Vitamin C was a bust, and so was vitamin E. But the list of shame would not stop there.