Are supplements good for you

There has been a surge in buyer interest in supplements with the entire supplement market commanding over 6 billion in sales as of 2013. The trend doesn't seem to be slowing down with estimates of an annual growth rate of over 7 percent industry wide. Many people don't query the advantage of taking exorbitant quantities of supplements. So the topic that medical doctor have recently begun to ponder is if these vitamins have damaging effects. Has the increasing sales in this business realistically harmed our health or is taking multivitamins the best approach to fighting off ill health and the likes.

A little while ago the Cochran review which provides Independent high-quality evidence for health care decision making reviewed thousands of randomized controlled clinical trials encompassing over 296,000 patients half of which were randomized to take various supplements including beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium and compared them to the other fifty percent of the patients who were set as controls. The study was performed as a randomized double blinded clinical study meaning that neither patients nor medical doctors who providing the pharmaceutical knew what the pills actually contained which may have been supplements or placedo i.e.)the control cohort receiving placebo prescription.

Studies like this have been done beforehand to evaluate the health benefits of supplements with confounding results as they were often without enough patients or were not coordinated in such a manner to be able to answer the clinical question. The Current study however has been powered to be able to shed some light on the age old inquiry of whether multivitamins are really good for you.

"The real concern comes into play when you consider that perfectly healthy individuals are taking enormous amounts of multivitamins in order to stay healthy" - Dr. Golshani a celebrated Los Angeles based interventional oncologist stated. Some dietary supplements are definitely indicated for certain illnesses mutivitamins are essential as the body does not make, digest or utilize certain supplements in some clinical syndromes. However for the normal 60 something supplements in particular antioxidants which have been in days gone by heralded for their malignancy thwarting powers taking supplements may actually be increasing their risk of cancers.

In early 2008 the Cohran review conducted an attenuated study than the current one and couldnt find any reason for a healthy adult to take a multivitamin supplement that was not prescribed for a certain affliction and/or clinical syndrome. The current study that we are talking about here further reaffirmed this notion. It was actually found that in these healthy individuals taking beta-carotene containing supplements and possibly vitamin E and/or citamin A was associated with increased risk of death. Yes death this means that almost everything we thought we knew about supplements and taking multivitamins may be wrong.

A current consideration in regards to why this is at he case and why these vitamins are thought to increase cancer and mortality risk is that antioxidants have long been believed to help save cells from early death well in a clinical context cancer cells occure naturaly and our bodies have a workings to blot out these cells but taking supplements that work as antioxidants can work to also save these cancerous cells from being tagged by the bodies normal methods of destroying these rogue cells.

In reality there is no policy yet about whether all or most supplements are damaging to our health because even in this study several of the tested supplements did not show detrimental health effects including the use of vitamin C and Selenium. What is now clear is that we ned to be more deliberate with our bodies and take what we see on the back of a supplement bottle with a grain of salt.

Physicians can likely help in deciding wether you should take a multivitamin/supplement or not. If they are unaware of the health risks or benefits of a certain approach then they can definitely guide you or look into the approach to best practices.

If you like this analysis of original medically related investigations drop by our website where we review and blog about medical topics relating to supplements reviewed by a knowledgable physician.