And let me reiterate further that these aren't placebo type compounds. IE, they aren't sugar tablets or cornstarch. I think that should surely be put on the record in this discussion. They are actual "amines", elementary minerals, and compounds necessary for assorted human metabolic processes.I know what vitamins are. As a part of my degree program, I had to take and pass nutrition classes from a Registered Dietician. I also had to take and pass Physiology classes. It does NOT have to be a sugar pill to cause a placebo effect.
And let me reiterate further that these aren't placebo type compounds. IE, they aren't sugar tablets or cornstarch. I think that should surely be put on the record in this discussion. They are actual "amines", elementary minerals, and compounds necessary for assorted human metabolic processes.I know what vitamins are. As a part of my degree program, I had to take and pass nutrition classes from a Registered Dietician. I also had to take and pass Physiology classes. It does NOT have to be a sugar pill to cause a placebo effect. Yes, I know you know what vitamins are. I'm sure you've administered them many times in your profession. I'm certain you administered them for reasons other than placebo effect as well.
Thanks to Macgyver and Mckenzie for your responses.
Lois
Thanks to Macgyver and Mckenzie for your responses. LoisLois please reiterate for me..what were those responses again? I'll be waiting. Please give a brief summary of those responses. I'll be right here.....you don't have to give a complete response. Just one thing that really stuck out for you.
Yes, I know you know what vitamins are. I'm sure you've administered them many times in your profession. I'm certain you administered them for reasons other than placebo effect as well.Yes I do, but we use them sparingly, under the advice of a Registered Dietician. When I worked in the Pediatric and Adult ICUs, if you could eat, unless you had certain diseases making you acutely malnourished, you do not get vitamins in the hospital. If you receive your nutrition via your IV fluid, typically you get vitamins Mon, Wed and Fri, and not a mega vitamin dosage, you get the RDA, and we get them off the IV nutrition as soon as possible. Infants are prescribed vitamins and iron for the first (I believe) 6 mos of life, unless they have acute nutrition problems. Doctors do not usually tell parents to give their young children-- who are growing faster than they have at any time of their life, outside of infancy and the intraunterine period, and can be incredibly picky eaters--vitamins. Parents usually decide on their own that children 'need' them, and the vitamin companies do everything they can to encourage it. The only time I can think of, where a 'normal' person would need vitamin supplementation, is in the case of a woman who wants to become pregnant because folate has been proved to significantly reduce the incidence of Spina Bifida.
Vyazma,
You keep responding to arguments nobody has made and wandering off into irrelevancies. Yes, vitamins are essential. That is part of their definition. No, there is no evidence to support that your daily multivitamin has a beneficial effect on your health, whether you feel it does or not. It probably also does little harm, but both benefit and harm have to be determined by research evidence, not just “common sense,” how you feel, or whatever else you are suggesting. And yes, of course you’re free to do whatever you like. I cannot begin to understand why you seem so irritated and defensive about my argument that such supplements are probably useless and may carry some small risk. If you disagree, fine. You don’t particularly care what I think and I don’t particularly care what you think, so we can both share our opinions and leave it at that. I haven’t insulted your “lifestyle,” merely made a factual obersvation on the state of the research evidence concerning the value of vitamin supplements.
And when Lois thanks macgyver and I for our contributions to the discussion, why do you feel it necessary to ask her to clarify her comments with specifics? That seems pointless and a little rude.
Vyazma, You keep responding to arguments nobody has made and wandering off into irrelevancies. Yes, vitamins are essential. That is part of their definition. No, there is no evidence to support that your daily multivitamin has a beneficial effect on your health, whether you feel it does or not. It probably also does little harm, but both benefit and harm have to be determined by research evidence, not just "common sense," how you feel, or whatever else you are suggesting. And yes, of course you're free to do whatever you like. I cannot begin to understand why you seem so irritated and defensive about my argument that such supplements are probably useless and may carry some small risk. If you disagree, fine. You don't particularly care what I think and I don't particularly care what you think, so we can both share our opinions and leave it at that. I haven't insulted your "lifestyle," merely made a factual obersvation on the state of the research evidence concerning the value of vitamin supplements. And when Lois thanks macgyver and I for our contributions to the discussion, why do you feel it necessary to ask her to clarify her comments with specifics? That seems pointless and a little rude.No, I have shown that they aren't useless. You just stated that they were essential. Are they essential or are they useless? Am I getting vitamins that are essential in the vitamin tablets that I take? Yes or No? I would think yes. Asanta just stated they administer vitamins in hospitals. This is exactly about you criticizing someones lifestyle. We started out this thread arguing about how vitamins are going to kill everyone. Now we're down to...yes vitamins are essential. Vitamin tablets contain these essential vitamins, and they do get absorbed and used by the body in that form...but it's better if you just eat regular food, because that's the way I think it should be. That's what what we are down to. That's what it was from the beginning. A critique of other people's lifestyle!! And because I feel either you nor MacGeyver have made any strong rebuttals against my position, I just wanted to see exactly what Lois was crowing about. Still waiting to see what points she considered valuable. And I'll repeat it again in case we're not clear. Vitamin supplements that contain RDI values of vitamins are safe. When ingested the body does take these tablets, break them down, and use them for metabolic systems essential for living. I have had to wade through "vitamins are dangerous"..."vitamins don't work"...."it's better to just eat foods than take vitamins"... It's always the same old CAM crew with their knee-jerk reactions to anybody who suggests anything outside of the rigid, subjective, opinions of established clinical medicine. That's what happened here. My points stand...you can't refute them. You're right though, you don't have to subscribe to them. Of all the big issues in the healthcare field, the best you can come up with is combating CAM? Which if I had my way would be a perfectly acceptable way to wean the millions of hypochondriacs and end of lifers off otherwise valuable time and resources in real medicine.
I don;t know why I am responding to Vyazma except to relate the old tale about the guy who kept banging his heads on the wall. When they asked him why he did it he said because it felt so good when he stopped… so here goes one more time.
Vyazma you seem to be missing the points we are trying to make so let me try a different way.
- Yes vitamins are essential in small amounts. That doesn’t mean they cant also be dangerous. A certain amount of gas is required to fill your tank and make your car go but overfill the tank with too much and you end up with a deadly explosive liquid in places it shouldn’t be. Vitamins in small doses are essential but nearly all of the available data points to the fact that you get all you need from the average diet and taking more does absolutely nothing to improve your health and may potentially be harmful in some cases.
- Neither Mackenzie nor I are telling you how to live your life but if you are going to come on a forum and express and opinion about a drug ( yes vitamins as bioactive substances ARE drugs) then we along with asanta as the only medical professionals here are going to act as a reasonable opposing opinion to point out the flaws in your arguments. If you don’t like that then you shouldn’t express your opinion on a forum. You especially shouldn’t express an opinion that is unsupported by the science on a forum of people devoted to rational thought and the scientific method.
- Providing unproven alt med treatments to patients under any circumstances would be dishonest, a violation of the hippocratic oath, potentially harmful, and a particularly cynical and stupid way to address the costs of health care.
There. My head hurts now but its going to feel so god when i stop again.
Oh, and here’s a shameless plug to sign my "We the People " petition since my post got burried. The White House
Sorry, Vyazma, I just can’t find a way to get you to see the point. Something can be essential and harmful at the same time. Oxygen is essential, and prolonged exposure to high levels can cause death. Water is essential, and drinking to much at once can kill you. Vitamins are essential, and getting more than you need can be harmful. This does not only mean megadosing, though of course the risk is greater the higher the dose. If you get all that is essential from your ordinary diet, which most people do (though I understand you don’t believe that), then any additional is extra and unecessary, useless at best and posisbly harmful. Extra supplementation of essential vitamins can be useless. Why is that so difficult a concept to grasp?
And all that crap about “We started out this thread arguing about how vitamins are going to kill everyone” is just a hyperbolic straw man because I never said anything like that. If that’s how you translate what macgyver and I have been saying, then there really isn’t any way we are ever going to even be able to agree about what we are discussing, much less about what the right answer is.
“It’s always the same old CAM crew with their knee-jerk reactions to anybody who suggests anything outside of the rigid, subjective, opinions of established clinical medicine.”
“Of all the big issues in the healthcare field, the best you can come up with is combating CAM?”
Also total BS. You simply don’t like my opinion on something you happen to believe in, so you make these kinds of ridiculous generalizations. “Knee-jerk” is simply your way of dismissing something you don’t like, and it ignores the years of study and investigation that many of us have put into coming up with informed opinions on this stuff. You haven’t a clue what asanta, macgyver, and I spend our time doing apart from a few conversation here that have ticked you off, so making these kinds of statements is just silly.
As macgyver said, you bring only opinion and no evidence to this discussion, and you’re unecessarily hostile and defensive about it as well.
MacGeyver-2) Neither Mackenzie nor I are telling you how to live your life but if you are going to come on a forum and express and opinion about a drug ( yes vitamins as bioactive substances ARE drugs) then we along with asanta as the only medical professionals here are going to act as a reasonable opposing opinion to point out the flaws in your arguments. If you don't like that then you shouldn't express your opinion on a forum. You especially shouldn't express an opinion that is unsupported by the science on a forum of people devoted to rational thought and the scientific method.Where are the flaws in my argument? Where? I'm waiting.
3) Providing unproven alt med treatments to patients under any circumstances would be dishonest, a violation of the hippocratic oath, potentially harmful, and a particularly cynical and stupid way to address the costs of health care.Right, and yet that's exactly what is happening anyways by and large. So perhaps Alt Meds are already saving the country's bloated Health Insurance costs billions.
You especially shouldn't express an opinion that is unsupported by the science on a forum of people devoted to rational thought and the scientific method.This is great. So no one can express opinions now? We've listened to boatloads of your opinions! Are you some exception to the rule? Don't forget to point out the flaws in my vitamin argument.
I really am beginning to think that its your head that needs to be banged against the wall. LOOK AT WHAT I SAID INSTEAD OF TAKING MY WORDS OUT OF CONTEXT!! My comment was "If you don’t like that" (having someone argue with you) "then you shouldn’t express your opinion on a forum. You especially shouldn’t express an opinion that is unsupported by the science on a forum of people devoted to rational thought and the scientific method." No one said you couldn't comment but if you don't like having your opinion criticized then you are in the wrong place.You especially shouldn't express an opinion that is unsupported by the science on a forum of people devoted to rational thought and the scientific method.This is great. So no one can express opinions now? We've listened to boatloads of your opinions! Are you some exception to the rule? Don't forget to point out the flaws in my vitamin argument.
I really am beginning to think that its your head that needs to be banged against the wall. LOOK AT WHAT I SAID INSTEAD OF TAKING MY WORDS OUT OF CONTEXT!! My comment was "If you don’t like that" (having someone argue with you) "then you shouldn’t express your opinion on a forum. You especially shouldn’t express an opinion that is unsupported by the science on a forum of people devoted to rational thought and the scientific method." No one said you couldn't comment but if you don't like having your opinion criticized then you are in the wrong place. What opinion of mine was criticized? Refresh my memory. The opinion I gave about feeling that the vitamins were giving me energy, helping to prevent illness, and preventing soreness I readily admitted were opinion and could be placebo effect. Sometimes I admitted that preemptively.You especially shouldn't express an opinion that is unsupported by the science on a forum of people devoted to rational thought and the scientific method.This is great. So no one can express opinions now? We've listened to boatloads of your opinions! Are you some exception to the rule? Don't forget to point out the flaws in my vitamin argument.
MacGeyver-I really am beginning to think that its your head that needs to be banged against the wall.This is shocking coming from a doctor! Shocking! You are still avoiding my request....what are the flaws in my vitamin argument?
People taking vitamin supplements can have a dramatically increased risk of death.]What about this statement? What about somebody who visits this forum who is taking vitamins as prescribed by their doctor and reads this? And they see "fatally"? So they stop taking their vitamins because they put more faith in this forum than they do in their doctor? I didn't notice any concern about this. The thread title could have been more accurately labeled..."Whoa! Lay off of mega-doses of vitamin E!" No it was..."lay off of vitamins!.....fatal!"In October 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn't. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer. These findings weren't new. Seven previous studies had already shown that, for certain groups, some vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease, and shortened lives.Much more at the link. In short, unless you're taking vitamins for a few specific conditions, you're screwing yourself. Possibly fatally.
I obviously meant it figuratively as in you've got some wires crossed up there and someone needs to give that thing a little knock so it starts working again. It was a joke, not a suggestion that physical violence was in order. You misquote, misinterpret, and misunderstand everything we are trying to tell you. We've spent pages pointing out the flaws in your arguments and readdressing them from a different angle trying to help you see what we are saying. Doing it again will obviously get us no where. Now Im done banging my head against the wall. Time to enjoy the peaceful after glow ( you see how that works. I wasn't actually banging my head against the wall, I was using it as a metaphor for doing something incredibly frustrating that I knew was hopeless)MacGeyver-I really am beginning to think that its your head that needs to be banged against the wall.This is shocking coming from a doctor! Shocking! You are still avoiding my request....what are the flaws in my vitamin argument?
.... Asanta just stated they administer vitamins in hospitals.And we administer dopamine, proprofol and norepinephrine as well. What is your point?
.... Asanta just stated they administer vitamins in hospitals.And we administer dopamine, proprofol and norepinephrine as well. What is your point? My point is that artificial vitamin supplementation actually works. In regards to delivering essential vitamins into the body. That's all. Nobody is disputing that. I know. It is just a tenet of my argument.
People taking vitamin supplements can have a dramatically increased risk of death.]What about this statement? What about somebody who visits this forum who is taking vitamins as prescribed by their doctor and reads this? And they see "fatally"? So they stop taking their vitamins because they put more faith in this forum than they do in their doctor? I didn't notice any concern about this. The thread title could have been more accurately labeled..."Whoa! Lay off of mega-doses of vitamin E!" No it was..."lay off of vitamins!.....fatal!"You mean the statement where it says, "Unless you're taking vitamins for a few specific conditions"? That one? Which should lead a reasonable person to conclude that if they've been prescribed vitamins, they probably should be taking them. But you know what, if you go to any message board and decide to do something because of what you've read there, which could have serious medical consequences, without consulting your doctor, then you deserve a Darwin Award.In October 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn't. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer. These findings weren't new. Seven previous studies had already shown that, for certain groups, some vitamins increased the risk of cancer and heart disease, and shortened lives.Much more at the link. In short, unless you're taking vitamins for a few specific conditions, you're screwing yourself. Possibly fatally.
Except for the fact that if one is taking moderate amounts of vitamins…they aren’t screwing themselves…fatally or otherwise.
There’s that.
Except for the fact that if one is taking moderate amounts of vitamins...they aren't screwing themselves..fatally or otherwise. There's that.Neither here nor there in the context of what you said. You raised the issue of someone being so foolish as to ignore their doctor's advice based on something they read on the internet.
Except for the fact that if one is taking moderate amounts of vitamins...they aren't screwing themselves..fatally or otherwise. There's that.Neither here nor there in the context of what you said. You raised the issue of someone being so foolish as to ignore their doctor's advice based on something they read on the internet.
Coldheart-In short, unless you’re taking vitamins for a few specific conditions, you’re screwing yourself. Possibly fatally.This is sensationalism. And it isn't correct. It flat out isn't correct as stated.