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There's been talk on here recently concerning vitamin D and general well-being. Dr Malcolm Kendrick, a Scottish GP who regularly blogs about cardio stuff, has turned his attention to vitamins and supplements. Some may find this informative:
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/01/27/what-causes-heart-disease-part-forty-five/
An addendum, concerning magnesium:
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/01/29/what-causes-heart-disease-part-forty-five-b-an-addendum/
My wife and I have been taking 5000iu vitamin D since Christmas and i have noticed an improvement in both of our moods.
It's a grim irony that the gobbledigook in the OPs article was fathered by one of the greatest scientists in history. The Gods do indeed have a sense of humour.
It's like medicine for idiots. We have these extremely complex diseases that challenge the frontiers of scientific understanding. Shall we persevere and try to unravel their mechanisms, so we can intervene with new therapies? No, let's just shovel vitamins down our throats, a panacea for all ills.
Shall we persevere and try to unravel their mechanisms, so we can intervene with new therapies? No, let’s just shovel vitamins down our throats, a panacea for all ills.
Aside from his accurate comments about the pharmaceutical industry, where does he say we should stop trying to unravel, understand and cure them?
"It’s a grim irony that the gobbledigook in the OPs article was fathered by one of the greatest scientists in history. The Gods do indeed have a sense of humour.
It’s like medicine for idiots. We have these extremely complex diseases that challenge the frontiers of scientific understanding. Shall we persevere and try to unravel their mechanisms, so we can intervene with new therapies? No, let’s just shovel vitamins down our throats, a panacea for all ills."
I found it easy to understand and suspect that you may have mistaken his meaning a little, as he seemed rational to me and actually pretty interesting. Probably worth reading again! 🙂
TL:DR
RDA of vitamins is good
So 10x RDA might be better (but there's no evidence, research or likely hypothesis to support this).
Isn't 10x RDA of VitC going to give you kidney/bladder stones when it percipitates out?
"However, there is very little good evidence that any vitamin supplement is beneficial. In large part this is because there are not huge profits to be made from selling vitamins, as they cannot be patented."
eh?
It's my understanding that there IS evidence regarding vitamins, and the evidence says there is no benefit from taking them.
This isn't there same as there being no evidence either way, because companies have not studied vitamins because they can't make a profit from selling them to treat specific ailments to cover the cost of the research.
Worth a read that, I've been thinking about starting a regular dose of vitamin D. I think I'll try it for a months
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/
In 2009 the UK market for dietary supplements and vitamins was worth more than £670 million.
Bottom line the vitamin/supplement market is huge. Most of us only need a balanced diet. Some very specific groups can benefit. The healthcare industry has a vested interest in developing its market and making profits.
In 2009 the UK market for dietary supplements and vitamins was worth more than £670 million.
Commercially he's not wrong, Omega Pharma won't do an expensive clinical trial into the effect of vitamins on an ailment, because if it's found Vitamin C does cure an illness at 10x or 100x the RDA, Dr's would just tell patients to take that and they would go out an buy generic Vit C powder/tablets, Omega would see very little return.
Magnesium isn’t a vitamin and it has various medical uses.
<Worth a read that, I’ve been thinking about starting a regular dose of vitamin D>
why not just get it from diet and sunshine?
oily fish – such as salmon, sardines, herring, mackerel and fresh tuna
red meat
liver
egg yolks
fortified foods – such as most fat spreads and some breakfast cereals
there are plenty of other sources
I was under the impression that Kendrick, as well as being a GP, was actually just a professional controversialist who has books to sell.
problem with taking excess vitamins and minerals is that they affect the absorption of others. This is why its important to eat properly.
why not just get it from diet and sunshine?
I live in Scotland lol
And to take an ad-homien pop at the OP, you're the first to complain when a Dr doesn't agree with you, it's a bit illogical to then take another's opinion as fact because you agree with it.
He's giving a view that will sell books or get im appearance fees on Breakfast TV. He's doing it for the same reasons he criticises drug companies. The drug companies only commission studies into drugs because there's money for them in it, he wouldn't get those lucrative invites if he wrote a blog about how good pharma companies are!
It doesn’t help that if you type Dr Malcolm Kendrick into google the next word that comes up is quack 🙁
“<span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">fifty per cent reduction in overall morality, in men</span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"> ”</span>
im trying to decide if I want to take more K, I think I might be too moral
It seems like Magnesium is the fashionable quackery du jour - I've had a few people ask about it recently. I guess there must be some articles published in magazines / blogs. I'm sure hypomagnesaemia is a problem, but because it's a marker of disease in that it's indicative of a lifestyle of poor diet, lack of exercise etc.
The irony in your link (which suggests we should be paying more attention to low magnesium) is that doctors often use crazy supra-physiological infusions of magnesium in hospitals daily, as a 'fix' for all sorts of things from Asthma to AF. It's one of the weird things that doctors do that has no evidence behind it. Magnesium levels are not under-recognised or under-tested in hospitals - if anything we massively overtreat it.
Does the term 'NHS GP' imply some sort of authority? It would be nice if it did. I wonder why you use it, CG? The way this doctor describes things (I'm thinking of the Mg++, AF, Stroke link he posits) suggests either a very superficial understanding of pathophysiology, or perhaps more worryingly a willingness to bend reality to support his point. Either way, the blog appears to sit somewhere between well-meaning nonsense and malicious quackery.
It doesn’t help that if you type Dr Malcolm Kendrick into google the next word that comes up is quack 🙁
[i]Obviously[/i] a conspiracy. Even Google is in on it. C'mon, sheeple.
I'm sitting on the fence on this one until I hear what DrP has to say.
He's probably not a real doctor but he does have a nice beard and a waistcoat so I trust his judgment
><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 15.360000610351563px;">Either way, the blog appears to sit somewhere between well-meaning nonsense and malicious quackery.</span>
He'll be getting his own chapter in Ben Goldacre's next book, like 'fake Dr' Gillian "Make up any old shit" McKeith.
><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 15.360000610351563px;">Either way, the blog appears to sit somewhere between well-meaning nonsense and malicious quackery.</span>
He'll be getting his own chapter in Ben Goldacre's next book, like 'fake Dr' Gillian "Make up any old shit" McKeith.
Jesus, this forum is utter shite. 5 mins to post and it still garbles it all up.
It's also utter rubbish to suggest there is no money to be made selling vitamins. There is bucket loads.
Much easier than proper drugs too - as long as they are safe to take there is not nearly so much to do before they get too market - then its a sales & marketing job.
Yes I work for an 'interested party'. I take our own product myself and am reasonably convinced I see a benefit, but I tend to use it maybe 1 day in 3. Plenty of friends who know where I work also get the same product, many paying full retail before realising they have a 'source' who equally claim to feel a benefit, from occasional or daily use. Frankly I've seen nothing concrete either way, benefit or negative so I'm happy to leave it to personal choice, but I wouldn't dispute that the same vitamins and minerals could be covered well enough in a varied diet. But then look at the RDA variation across the world and ask whose standard you're trying to reach? Who has it right in each case?
Or just stop worrying and take a multivit if you think it helps you, and don't if you don't 🙂
><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 15.360000610351563px; background-color: #fbfbfb;">It’s also utter rubbish to suggest there is no money to be made selling vitamins. There is bucket loads.</span>
I'm sure I read that big pharma make most vitamin pills as the margins are still good, the R&D costs are virtually zero and it's a billion dollar industry.
I've kinda come to see cinnamon girl as a massive health troll.....Don<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">n't get suckered into her health anxiety by replying to her threads.</span>
Oh wait........ I just did..
CG has an alternative opinion on medicine and health..
It may differ from many... But different opinions, knowledge and discussion make stw the colourful place that it is. Deriding people for their opinion is the ugly side of forums.
<<span style="color: #444444; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">why not just get it from diet and sunshine?></span>
what’s sunshine?
CG has an alternative opinion on medicine and health.
At what point do her alternative facts become health trolling? People can make different choices about health priorities - whether the benefits of blood pressure control are worth the side effects for example - but when someone takes an adversarial view on *everything* health related it becomes wearisome.
Anyway, I’ve been taking vitamin D for 3 months and I have the worst winter depression I’ve ever experienced so the vitamin D is doing **** all for me.
Vit D doesn't stop you feeling crap
If you are taking VitD for winter blues/SAD reduction, you need to make sure you’re taking D3. Some pills are D2, which isn’t as (anecdotally) effective.
He seems to lump vitamins and minerals in together and gives the impression you are very unlikely to ever overdose on any of them. I wonder if he actually knows that it's potassium that's actually used to stop your heart and kill you in lethal injection executions in the US.
Fortunately when I had rather high potassium readings in a blood test my GP had some inkling that that might not be a good thing and got me on an ECG machine as a precaution. That was all fine and they never did find a reason for the high levels so probably down to the testing process which can lead to abnormal levels being recorded. Haven't eaten a banana since though!
I've read Kendrick's Cholestral book and I thought it was very good, very reasoned arguments about what causes heart attacks.
I've also read The Health Delusion, which I recommend:
This is a book along the lines of the Ben Goldacre books, evidence based.
It talks about vitamin D a lot. about how we are deficient for a lot of the year and how the UK RDA is probably 3 times lower than it should be - the Canadians have it about right. Taking the Canadians figure means that about 90% of the UK population is deficient in the winter months.
That figure is 30ng/ml. and it seems that, even if we are exposed to huge amounts of sunlight, the body tops out at about that level. Studies of mortality rates verses vit D levels also suggest that level is right. Lots of links to studies linking vit D levels to cancer risk, like prostate cancer risk.
It points out how relying on a diet is not sufficient - diet provides about 10% of our vit D requirements and 90% coming from sunshine.
It recommends, based on studies, a dose of 1100-1200IU a day, best taken with a meal containing fat. Too high a level seems to be as bad as too low for mortality.
So, I recommend that book again - it talks a lot about getting a balanced diet, how vitamin supplements do not generally replace food and how they can actually be dangerous. But for vitamin D they definitely recommend supplements.
In fact, I've given away all my copies of that book so I've just bought the kindle version to remind myself so I could reply.