| Advocates of both vitamins and orthomolecular medicine (the use of extremely high doses of vitamins as therapy) agree that vitamin supplements enhance health, at least under some circumstances, but they disagree on the amounts necessary to accomplish the goal. As happens in other areas of alternative healing, many proponents of dietary cures take a grain of fact and use it to bake a loaf of unsupported conclusions.
Dietary recommendations are based on three facts. First, what we eat undeniably affects our health. |
| In addition to general vitamin supplements sold to compensate for less-than-ideal eating habits, supplements are promoted as insurance against inadequate intake of essential nutrients, including proteins. Other supplements focus on people's special needs, such as improved athletic performance, desire for thicker hair, or hopes of losing weight. |
Cheryle R. Hart, M.D. Mary Kay Grossman, R.D.
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 As for vitamin supplements, most nutritionists agree that the nutrients that you consume in your foods are far superior to those that you can take in a supplement form. This is partly because of the way nutrients interact and partly because we don't yet fully understand all the important elements in food. Certain substances such as phytochemicals, for instance, are present in food but not in supplements. It would therefore be best to consume adequate amounts of various foods to provide all of the essential nutrients. |
David Brownstein
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 John Lee, author of Natural Progesterone: The Multiple Roles of a Remarkable Hormone writes, "I have treated postmenopausal osteoporosis with transdermal natural progesterone included in a program of diet, mineral and vitamin supplements, and modest exercise, and demonstrated true reversal of osteoporosis even in patients who did not use estrogen supplements."3 I have also experienced similar findings in my patients.
Dr. Lee studied 63 patients measuring bone mineral density, which is a common measurement to gauge the degree of osteoporosis. |
Stephen T., M.D. Sinatra
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 Consistent with good manufacturing practices, these vitamin supplements did not contain quinoline yellow (yellow dye #10) which is not certified for use in this country as a food additive. However, all formulas in the Finnish study were colored with quinoline yellow, and were not manufactured in the United States under stringent regulations.
Since the Finnish study is at variance with all other clinical studies and had such unexpected results, the question about the impact of quinoline yellow remains. |
Ralph Golan, M.D.
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 NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS
• Two vitamin supplements are useful in treating this condition: B-complex vitamins (10 to 100 milligrams twice a day) and vitamin B-12 (1,000 micrograms sublingually once or twice a day). Depending on the severity of the condition and your age, both supplements may be better administered by intramuscular injection.
• If indicated, take betaine hydrochloride capsules with meals (as directed by your physician).
• If indicated, take digestive enzymes (one capsule with each meal).
HERBAL REMEDIES
• Take bitters. |
Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.
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 He loved his body with exercise, good nutrition, and vitamin supplements. And from that point on his immune system showed increased response and his tumors began to shrink. Two years after the diagnosis, Calderon showed no signs of AIDS.
The exceptional patient often gets angry at a doctor's heavy-handed pronouncement of doom. Linda, a nurse I know who refused chemotherapy, was told by her M.D., "You'll be sorry. You'll come crawling back here in six months." She kept thinking, "That S.O.B.! I won't die, just to prove he's wrong. |
John R. Smythies
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| A study of 1,380 ophthalmic outpatients aged forty to seventy-nine indicated that the regular use of vitamin supplements significantly lowered the incidence of cataract [121].
(4) A fifteen-year follow-up study compared forty-seven patients with cataracts and ninety-four matched controls [106]. Low serum levels of beta-carotene and vitamin E correlated with more cataract formation. |
| But it remains clear at this time that a diet rich in a variety of fruits and vegetables wins hands down over any vitamin supplements. Such a diet probably provides many anticancer agents besides antioxidants about which we as yet know little. To benefit from the protective effects of dietary chemicals it is best to do what your parents told you—eat your vegetables.
DISEASES OF THE
NERVOUS SYSTEM The brain is particularly vulnerable to oxidative stress for several reasons:
1. It uses oxygen at a faster rate than any other tissue.
2. |
Robert Hass, M.S.
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 Note to strict vegetarians: vitamin B12 is found only in animal products, fortified food products such as breakfast cereals, and vitamin supplements.)
Now, scientists are taking a hard look at homocysteine's involvement in other health problems. Cancer researchers are now wondering if homocysteine is involved in tumor growth. Scientists are also searching for links to diabetes, organ rejection, and some nerve disorders. Homocysteine may even cause problems in pregnancy. |
John R. Smythies
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| Meyers and Maloley estimate that, in spite of their advice, some 25 percent of Americans self-medicate with vitamin supplements on a regular basis.
Illingworth agrees with Meyers and Maloley and offers this caveat: "In the absence of more convincing clinical trial data it seems premature to advocate supplementation with antioxidant vitamins [to prevent coronary heart disease] except in selected high risk patients" [94]. |
Francisco, M.D. Contreras
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| It is certainly true that there is at present a controversy about vitamin supplements. There are studies that demonstrate that
"the use of synthetic vitamins (A, B, C, D and E) aggravate the harmful effects of radiation in the offspring of pregnant rats." Big deal! However, other tests prove that nutritional supplements are essential in the prevention of cancer. Research biochemists know it is more than just beta carotene and vitamins C and E in vegetables and fruits that help prevent cancer. |
| Giovannucci's team discovered that a high intake of folic acid, from fresh vegetables and fruit and vitamin supplements, lowered the risk of tumor development.
Other research shows folic acid directs the growth of new cells in the body. A shortage or lack of this nutrient may contribute to improper or abnormal cell formation. We now know that a lack of folic acid in early stages of pregnancy increases the chances of birth defects.
Who are we going to believe? The nutritionally challenged minds of the scientists? |
Elaine Feuer
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 An alternative doctor told me I had to clean up my life; no more screwing around; take vitamin supplements; fast so that the body can clean itself, purge itself—animals don't eat when they are sick but we keep feeding ourselves. I started going to chiropractors since regular medicine?drugs and antibiotics—destroy my immune system. I started taking herbs because of this doctor. So up until I heard of True Health, I maintained my health through herbal and vitamin therapy, proper diet, fasting, and going to chiropractors. |
| The New York Times entitled its front page article on the Finnish study, "Vitamin Supplements Are Seen As No Guard Against Diseases." Once again following the "official line," the media disregarded the multitude of studies that demonstrate the benefits of antioxidants used in optimum amounts. In their effort to mislead the public about nutrition, the government wasted $40 million of taxpayers' money on a study that should never have been undertaken in the first place.
BENEFITS FROM HUMAN NUTRITION RESEARCH ? |
Christian B. Allan and Wolfgang Lutz
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 You can, of course, take vitamin supplements to augment these deficiencies, but this method is not as good for your body as a combination of foods from an animal source. Don't misunderstand: We're certainly not suggesting you eliminate fruits and vegetables from your diet, just that you don't consume more than 12 grams (6 BUs) of carbohydrates daily in all forms. If, for you, this means eating less fruit, then we urge you to take this step. Your health certainly will benefit.
VITAMINS
Vitamins are small molecules that the body cannot make, so they must be obtained from the food supply. |
Isadore Rosenfeld, M.D.
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 Unfortunately, the only "treatment" that makes any sense, given how little we know about it, is a nutritious diet and oral vitamin supplements. Time and nature will eventually heal you. Don't waste your time and money on exotic and useless intravenous megavitamins.
THE COMMON COLD
WHAT, IF NOT VITAMIN C?
During the winter months, someone—my wife, children, friends, or patients—asks me almost every day what to do about a nagging cold. I tell him or her not to take antihistamines. They're good for allergies, but can make your nose even more stuffy and aggravate your cough if you have a cold. |
Ralph Golan, M.D.
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| NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS
• Take the following mineral supplements: chromium (200 to 1,000 micrograms a day), zinc (up to 30 milligrams a day), manganese (up to 20 milligrams a day), vanadium (up to 1,000 micrograms a day), and magnesium (up to 800 milligrams a day unless it causes diarrhea).
• vitamin supplements are also vital for treatment. Take vitamins E (up to 800 I.U. daily), C (up to 3,000 milligrams or more a day—the more vitamin C you take, the less your insulin requirement may be). |
Covert Bailey
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 Let the energy bars, vitamin supplements, amino acids, and pep pills remain with the hucksters who started promoting them.
How Carbohydrate Loading Works The Carbo-Loading Regimen The Effects of Caffeine The Gut and Gas
How Carbohydrate Loading Works
Trained muscles have the ability to store more glycogen than untrained muscles. They also use less glycogen during exercise. Elite athletes, therefore, have a decided advantage over the rest of us. Since it's lack of glycogen that leads to muscle fatigue, they endure long, hard exercise better than we do. |
Ralph Golan, M.D.
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| Test your vitamins as you would the foods and beverages, since vitamin supplements commonly trigger adverse reactions, particularly if they contain wheat, soy, corn, milk, sugar, or food coloring/additives.
• Does your diet consist largely (or regularly) of processed and prepared foods—mixes, sauces, luncheon meats, instant dinners, or any foods that you have not made from scratch and that come in packages with long lists of ingredients? If so, you'd do well to add the following to your step 1 list: sugar, corn, soy, yeast, food coloring and preservatives, and other artificial additives. |
| The interaction of solid food and vitamin supplements, along with digestive secretions, enhances vitamin supplement assimilation. However, there appears to be some controversy about whether or not to take mineral supplements with or separate from meals. Some reports suggest that mineral supplements are best taken a half hour or more before or several hours after meals to achieve the best absorption. Other reports suggest that when minerals are taken with meals their absorption is enhanced. |
| She also recalled from our discussions that her body functioned best with optimal biochemical support, so she decided to be nearly religious about taking all of her vitamin supplements. Sally knew how much better she felt when she took them regularly. She reestablished a connection with her genuine desire to be well and, as an extension of this desire, recognized the importance of being very strict in the initial stages. |
Jean Carper
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 In some cases heart patients are simply taking vitamin supplements on their own, sometimes with astonishing results.
JOEY'S MIRACLE
"Vitamins Opened Up My Blocked Arteries"
Joey Blackburn is by no means a typical case, but the remarkable reversal of her clogged arteries after she took a vitamin-nutrient supplement is intriguing.
In August 1990 Joey, age twenty, was diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy, an uncommon type of heart disease in which a viral infection attacks the heart, often causing it to deteriorate into deadly malfunction. Doctors at St. |
Kathi Keville
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 Actually, toxicity from medicinal herbs pales in comparison with injuries resulting from prescription drugs and even vitamin supplements. For example, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission in Washington, D.C., six children died in the United States in 1993 and three in 1994 as a result of taking products that contained iron. No deaths have been reported from the low doses in children's chewable vitamins.
I suspect that some undiscovered factors cause certain people to be more susceptible to certain herbs than others. Researcher and herb toxicity specialist Ryan J. Huxtable, Ph.D. |
Gale Maleskey
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 The study combines shark cartilage with his own 10-point lifestyle plan that emphasizes proper nutrition, certain vitamin supplements, no smoking, no alcohol, exercise, stress reduction, and other lifestyle changes. The patients he treats are terminally ill, with cancer that has already spread to various parts of their bodies. All have failed to respond to chemotherapy or radiation therapy. In other words, their cancers are widespread and can't be cured with any conventional treatments.
Using shark cartilage and lifestyle modification, Dr. |
The Editors of Prevention Magazine Health Books
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 If you have heart disease, you should discuss vitamin supplements with your doctot.
Beta-Carotene: Preventing Heart Attacks
Although sometimes overshadowed in the lab by vitamin E, beta-carotene, the nutrient that gives cattots their color, is a champion on the dinner plate when it comes to fighting heart disease.
One study after another touts the heart-healthy benefits of beta-carotene, beginning with the Physicians' Health Study at Harvard Medical School. |
| Dian Mills, for example, a nutrition consultant in London and author of Female Health: The Nutrition Connection, became a strong advocate of B vitamin supplements through personal experience.
"I was in absolute crawl-around-the-house agony. And none of the traditional treatments was taking the pain away," recalls Mills. Her doctor even recommended a hysterectomy, advice she flatly refused. "So I went to doctors of nutritional medicine in London, and I've been pain-free ever since."
Mills's supplement regimen included B vitamins, particularly thiamin, riboflavin and vitamin B6. |
| Certainly, the finding of this study suppotts the atgument that vitamin supplements alone cannot undo the damage wrought by years of bad habits or act as a substitute for eating well," Dr. McLarty says.
An incteasing number of nutritionally oriented doctots are recommending supplements of beta-carotene to help prevent cancer, usually 10,000 to 25,000 international units daily. One 7V2-inch carrot contains about 20,000 international units of beta-carotene. |
Henry Pasternak, D.V.M., C.V.A.
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 The truth of the matter is that synthetic isolated vitamin supplements act more like drugs than natural vitamins. Supplements must be food concentrates, intact, integrated, with their vitamin complexes incorporated so as to retain their functional and nutritional integrity. They must contain all the factors indigenous to food—both known and unknown factors—in their entirety. Chemically pure vitamins when ingested must be put in the proper combination with the other natural components of that vitamin complex to be utilized by the body. |
Ralph Golan, M.D.
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| It can also be linked to an adverse reaction to a prescription medication or vitamin supplements.
Treatment and Preventive Measures
Address the underlying causes and treat appropriately. Consult a physician if persistent. Consider the following options for symptomatic relief.
CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL TREATMENT
• Antinausea medications, such as Compazine and Tigan, are commonly prescribed.
HERBAL REMEDIES
• Drink gingerroot tea, full strength (four or five thin slices of the fresh root lightly simmered for twenty minutes in 2 cups of water). |
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