Snake oil?
There are many conflicting studies and reports about health supplements. Is Vitamin C worth taking or not? Does Echinacea kill colds? Am I missing out not drinking Goji juice, wheatgrass extract and flaxseed oil every day? Author David McCandless has created a visualization of scientific evidence of health supplements.
Multivitamins don’t contain any proven health benefits.
If you take multivitamins, you may want to reconsider your morning routine. The latest issue of the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine, looks at the research and clinical trials and penned an editorial with a headline worth reading: “Enough is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Mineral Supplements.”
Study raises more questions about the health benefits of vitamins.
A new Biology Letters paper raises more questions about the benefits of vitamins as a health supplement. High doses of dietary antioxidants such as vitamins are claimed to slow the process of cellular aging by lessening the damage to proteins, lipids and DNA caused by free radicals. Some research has found that the longevity of mice could be extended by administering particular vitamin supplements, despite the supplements’ limited effectiveness in reducing free radical damage. However, the opposite was found to be true in voles in a new study.
Continue reading… “The negative effects of vitamins: Study”
Futurist Thomas Frey: How many pills do you take on a daily basis?
According to a 2010 study by Colorado State University, about 68% of American adults take multivitamin supplements. At the same time the average American fills 12 prescriptions a year.
Continue reading… “Our Alarming Culture of Pill People and Future Trends in Healthcare”
Could taking one of these vitamins lead you down the path of bad behavior?
Taking a multivitamin may lead to poorer health, not because of what they do to your body, but what they do to your mind.
Continue reading… “Taking a multivitamin can lead to poorer health”
Vitamin D is essential for bone growth and cellular health but high does could be bad for your heart.
High doses of vitamin D could more than double the chance of having a type of serious heart complaint, according to results of a large-scale survey.
Continue reading… “Too much Vitamin D can double heart condition risk”
The study found a small increase in the risk of death among older women who took dietary supplements.
Most people receive little benefit from taking multivitamins and many other dietary supplements and they may even be harmful, according to researchers behind a large new study.
Continue reading… “Vitamins and dietary supplements offer little benefit, may be harmful: Study”
We’ve all got that friend or family member that swears by a supplement promising to stave off colds, cure headaches, or fix some other malady, but often they’re little more than snake oil. This Snake Oil chart matches supplements to scientific support.
The chart is a pretty simple idea: Items toward the top of the chart have strong scientific evidence supporting their health benefits (when taken orally by an adult with a healthy diet), while those toward the bottom have the least evidence supporting their worth. Each item also lists the supposed health benefit of said supplement. The larger a supplement’s circle, the more popular it is as a solution for a problem. Using green tea as a cholesterol helper is popular and strongly supported, for example, while the chart illustrates that although Vitamin E is popularly believed to help your heart and fight prostate cancer, there’s little evidence to support it…
Continue reading… “Snake Oil Chart Highlights the Worth (or Lack Thereof) of Supplements”
Researchers found that increased levels of vitamin D, obtained from exposure to sun or eating oily fish, could help keep our brains in top condition as we age.
Continue reading… “Sunbathing Could Boost Your Brain And Prevent Dementia”
Finding it hard to quit cigarettes? Fret not, for researchers are close to developing a pill which they claim could mitigate some of the negative health effects of smoking.
Continue reading… “A Pill To Curb Smoking Damage”
A Brazilian palm berry, popular health food though little research has been done on it, now may have its purported benefits better understood. In the first research involving people, the acai (ah-sigh-EE) berry has proven its ability to be absorbed in the human body when consumed both as juice and pulp. That finding, by a team of Texas AgriLife Research scientists, was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Continue reading… “Antioxidants From Acai Berry Absorbed By Body”
Off the coast of Peru swim billions of sardines and anchovies: oily, smelly little fish, rich in nutritious omega-3 fatty acids. Their spot on the food chain is low; many will be caught, ground up, and fed as fishmeal to bigger animals.
Continue reading… “Enhanced Foods: Are They Superfoods Or Monsters From The Deep?”
