by John Hasenkam

Created on: November 12, 2008

I have labored in vain to find one study which demonstrates that supplement taking increases longevity. During my investigations I found that exact opposite: taking large quantities of some vitamins actually increased overall mortality. As noted in one study: "There is increasing concern from these trials that pharmacological supplementation of vitamins may be associated with a higher mortality risk." (Thomas, DR, Vitamins in aging, health, and longevity, Clin Interv Aging. 2006;1(1):81-91). The Seneca study found that supplementation use by smokers significantly increased mortality in smokers and found no benefit for non smokers. Smokers are strongly advised to avoid any supplements containing beta carotene.

The supplement industry is playing on our greatest fear, death. An incredible amount of money is being wasted on vitamin pills and other so called wonder supplements. One of my favourite sayings is that on the internet there is a cure and conspiracy for everything. On too many occasions I have come across "health professionals" providing very dangerous advice. For example, some friends of mine asked me to do some background research for their daughter who has a serious juvenile macular dystrophy condition called Stargardt. They took her to a naturopath who put the child on a very high dose of vitamin A supplement. I was very angry about this because even though I had just begun my research I realised that vitamin A intake must be very carefully moderated in such a condition. My opinion has been validated from numerous sources now advising that anyone with Stargardt must keep their total Vitamin A intake down as close as possible to the Recommended Daily Intake. In fact vitamin A supplementation is just about the worse thing for such a condition. If anyone is deficient in Vitamin A then there must be something seriously wrong with their diet. Furthermore, there are studies indicating that high vitamin A intake, or beta carotene, or vitamin E, can increase overall mortality.

Vitamin E supplementation is widely touted as one of the best health initiatives we can exercise but the evidence for this is scant. A huge problem with most vitamin E supplements is that these only contain alpha tocopherol. High levels of alpha tocopherol can impede the absorption of the other types of vitamin E. This is dangerous because gamma and delta tocopherol are much more powerful than alpha tocopherol. This may explain why some studies have found that vitamin E supplementation

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