Everybody Is A Vitamin Expert!

There was once a self-satisfied young male patient who told me that he took vitamin D and that was because he had a low serum level. He told me that D was the only vitamin ever proven to make you sick if you don’t get enough, therefore the only one worth taking.

I asked him where he had obtained this marvelous information.

He told me he had obtained it from his doctor (general practitioner) of course. I told him that I disagreed. There was much scientific literature, mostly from other countries and in other languages, that suggested there were a great deal more facts.

The fact of the matter is, most folks who do research do it for a living, at least in part. When I was on the staff of universities, it was quite “laudable” to “cover” at least part of my salary by receiving grants from outside the university, either companies or government agencies.

Drug companies love to pay for research. Of course, they have a vested interest in there being articles published in research journals that show their drugs to be safe and effective,

A vitamin (by definition) occurs naturally. That means a vitamin cannot be “patented;” that reads, it is not alone a “contribution to science,” for a naturally occurring substance is found, not manufactured.

No company is going to pay much of anything to research a natural substance, for it is pretty hard to make money from a natural substance.

Add to this the fact that minimum values are government (meaning “Politically”) determined. At least at the outset this meant what was necessary to avoid having physical illnesses from vitamin deficiency, like beri-beri.  At any rate, here is the FDA’s up to date list. The suggestions in this Huffington Post article are an amazingly valid guide.

Me, I do the best I can to give patients recommendations based on the best science I can dig up.

When I was a little child and permanently hungry, I was given diets to follow and in retrospect, I am glad I did not. If I had seriously limited calories, as I had been frequently advised, I would have probably had some kind of subtle deficiency in vitamins and/or minerals. I may well have ended up even less normal than I think I am now.

Now, I am probably much healthier than I have been for a very long time. I am hyperaware of everything that goes into my mouth, but I do consume a fairly long list of nutritional supplements.

My best recommendation is that self-treatment with vitamins and minerals is not without risk. I mean there are such things as hypervitaminoses and they do have symptoms. So read all the amateur biohackers online that amuse you, but run everything by your doctor just to check safety. This is one vitamin and mineral compound that crosses the blood brain barrier, is effective according to published research (partly mine) and which I take myself.

As always, follow the instructions.