Physicians are recommending that individuals stop taking vitamins in an attempt to prove their health. I asked Dr. Glenn Gero who is one of New Jersey’s most knowledgeable nutirition experts for his comments.
A poorly orchestrated research study is worse than no study at all.
There is no standardization as to the quality of the supplements taken by the participants of the studies. Nutrients are complexes and must be taken as comprehensive complexes. For example, vitamin E is not d-alpha tocopherol or dl-alpha tocopherol. Vitamin E is a complex of alpha, beta, delta and gamma tocopherols and mixed tocotrienols. Carotenoids are a grouping of hundreds of phyto nutrients and are not just beta carotene; Vitamin C contains bioflavonoids, hesperin and rutin and isn’t merely ascorbic acid. When nutrients are fractionalized and isolated they become drug-like and can manifest negative reactions when taken inappropriately.
Additionally, most store bought multi-vitamins and supplements contain unhealthy fillers, excibients, artificial colors, heavy metal toxins (such as aluminum, as in Centrum), and toxic capsule materials. These are the supplements that are being measured.
When I addressed a director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about their poorly conducted research studies, his comment was that it would be too costly to conduct studies the way that I had recommended. In other words, in his opinion, ad hominem research is “good enough.”
Let’s put things in perspective: If the equivalent of one jumbo jet with 300 passengers crashed each day of the year, killing all aboard, how many individuals would venture unto an airliner? This amounts to just over 100,000 lives lost every year. Almost exactly equivalent to the number of deaths related pharmaceutical drugs taken as prescribed.
(The statistic of the fatalities associated with prescription drugs was cited in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The actual number was 106,000 in hospital settings. This does not include others affected who were not hospital bound. The actual number may have been double.)
The deaths associated with quality nutritional supplements are about zero.
Why isn’t the media expounding the risks of pharmaceutical drugs? Could it be because of the revenues they generate for television, radio, the internet and the print media?
Dr. Glenn B. Gero, N.D., D.Sc., M.Sc., R.H. (AHG), M.E.S., C.L.C.
Board-certified Naturopathic Doctor
Registered Herbalist – American Herbalist Guild
Medical/Corrective Exercise Specialist
HOLISTIC NATUROPATHIC CENTER
http://www.holisticnaturopath.com/