Vitamin C Saga: How a small expert group fought back against NHS misinformation
2By Jerome Burne Whenever government […]
By Jerome Burne Whenever government […]
Yet another round of media stories this week picking up on an “expert’s” claim that vitamins are ineffective and dangerous. They are the medical equivalent of blaming immigrants or single mothers for various social ills; scare stories that spin the data and draw totally unjustified conclusions.
Last month two new cholesterol lowering drugs stepped into the limelight at AHA’s (American Heart Association) annual conference. Neither is likely to make it to market until the end of next year but soon after that they are likely to be coming to a doctor’s surgery near you.
A new, as yet unpublished, study shows that the elderly are very likely to seriously lack vitamin D, raising their risk of broken bones. What’s more care homes rarely offer supplements. Making the situation even worse are the cocktails of prescription drugs that many of these patients swallow daily.
Vitamins are attacked as being ineffective and possibly dangerous a couple of times a year in the press, usually following a study in a medical journal. The implication is that it is better to stick to drugs that have been properly tested and found to be safe and effective.
And a dietician usually adds that you won’t be missing out if you avoid supplement because you can get all the minerals and vitamins you need from a “healthy balanced diet” (HBD)… (Read More…)
One New Year tradition, along with wondering how you could have spent so much on so little, is making healthy resolutions which may involve some sort of supplement. As a nutritional therapist I’ve been helping people for years to handle chronic disorders and stay healthier by recommending specific nutritional supplements based on risk, coupled with substantial changes in people’s diet. There’s plenty of evidence it benefits people but there’s lots we still don’t know and new well-conducted research is always welcome. (Read More…)
News that the Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, is “profoundly ashamed” at the return of rickets is greatly encouraging. Rickets, the bone disease of children, is only one of dozens of diseases associated with, or known to be caused by, insufficient vitamin D in early life. At last it seems the risks of vitamin D deficiency are being taken seriously. (Read more…}
Some years ago I became interested in how the government and the Department of Health deal with preventing illness. My own health had improved after I had lost a lot of weight and I felt so much better that I began researching what else could keep me feeling so well. One bit of advice that kept cropping up was to keep Vitamin D levels topped up. (Read more…)
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