{"id":5426,"date":"2011-10-12T05:15:37","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T03:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=5426"},"modified":"2015-02-16T09:05:03","modified_gmt":"2015-02-16T14:05:03","slug":"vites-minerals-dietary-supplements-dietary-supplements-vites-minerals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/vites-minerals-dietary-supplements-dietary-supplements-vites-minerals\/","title":{"rendered":"Vites and Minerals are Dietary Supplements; but Not all Dietary Supplements are Vites and Minerals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unless you’ve been living in a cave the last week or so, I’m sure you’ve heard about the latest study on dietary supplements<\/a>. If you go by the headlines (as many folks simply scanning the news do),\u00a0I wouldn’t blame you\u00a0for concluding\u00a0that dietary supplements are dangerous, in general<\/em>\u00a0– at least for older women. After all, that’s what the news articles proclaim: “Dietary Supplements Risky for Older Women, Study Finds<\/a>” – or words to this effect.<\/p>\n

For now, I’m inclined to leave the detailed critiques of this study\u00a0to others – epidemiological study design and stats aren’t my strong suits. But I would like to register one objection: the constant switching between “dietary supplements” and “vitamin and mineral\u00a0supplements”\u00a0in the news reports (as well as in the text of the study); as if they were equivalent terms.<\/p>\n

They aren’t. The study authors looked at…<\/a><\/p>\n

…multivitamins; vitamins A, beta-carotene, B6, folic acid, B complex, C, D, and E; and minerals iron, calcium, copper, magnesium, selenium and zinc.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And found\u00a0small increases in mortality associated with multivitamins, vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc and copper (calcium was associated with a decreased risk).<\/p>\n

Given the prevalence of vitamin and mineral supplementation, certainly this is a finding that’s worth looking deeper into (although, for the record, I’m not too surprised about iron or copper… or the multis, many of which contain iron and copper). But do I need to remind anyone that this is a very limited and specific\u00a0group\u00a0of supps?\u00a0 The\u00a0category “dietary supplements” includes a\u00a0LOT of\u00a0compounds that are definitely NOT vitamins or minerals. Thus,\u00a0statements – like the headline quoted above – that broadly condemn “dietary supplements” go\u00a0way too far, and could easily confuse casual readers\/listeners.<\/p>\n

I suppose it’s not entirely the fault of the media – as mentioned above, the study authors do this too. But this is imprecise at best, and alarmist at worst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unless you’ve been living in a cave the last week or so, I’m sure you’ve heard about the latest study on dietary supplements. If you go by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,27,28],"tags":[1738],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5426"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9781,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5426\/revisions\/9781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}