In today’s blog, we are covering a topic in high demand: Supplements. To do so, I’m sharing with you the more essential takes of an interview we had with a professional who knows his way around supplements. David Meinz.
David is a registered and certified dietitian. But that’s not all he does. David doesn’t spend much time in one-on-one meetings with folks because he spends his time as a public speaker.
He’s travelled from Denver to Dubai, Kansas City to Kuwait City. David has been globetrotting and helping people understand how to live a long and healthy life.
https://www.davidmeinz.com/
David has an exciting hobby. David is about a mile and a half below the surface of the earth in a remote station where he keeps the Global History and Museum of the History of Supplements.
As we know, supplements are trendy. They are similar to prescription medications. Many people feel that they will be healthier if they can take a supplement. It’s the easy way.
People think I can’t lose weight, I can’t control my carbs, I don’t want to work out, or I don’t have discipline. But I can buy a pill, whether a prescription or a supplement, and I will be healthy.
The Dangers of Supplements
One of those pills was just credited for killing somebody. Her name is Loretta McClintock. She was 61 years old. She was found unresponsive on December 15th,2021, with a partially intact white mulberry leaf in her stomach.
The coroner’s report stated that the cause of death was dehydration from stomach inflammation. White mulberry will cause it.
The FDA monitors dietary supplements, but they’re categorized as food, not medicine. This is David Meinz’s area of expertise.
David just shared with us that In 1994, Congress passed something called the DSHE Act. It stands for the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act.
It responded to the Food and Drug Administration’s interest in getting more involved with the supplement world and protecting consumers.
The supplement industry didn’t want government intervention. Neither did a lot of consumers. Americans wrote letters to Congress about staying out of their supplement accessibility- more than any other issue than the Vietnam War.
When it works right, it is supposed to work that way: Congress is supposed to do what Americans say. They just don’t do it often enough. But they did this time.
Congress backed off and compromised with the supplement industry. Now the supplement industry is self-regulated. They are not like the pharmaceutical industry, which has to go through years and years of testing and multi-millions of dollars.
If the supplement company wants to produce a weight loss or muscle-building product and make it out of guinea pig brains, all they have to put it in a capsule and distribute it to stores. It can be available in a couple of weeks. There’s no government oversight for effectiveness or safety.
A survey was done, and half of all Americans believe that the federal government, the Food and Drug Administration, has to approve supplements. Half of Americans believe it. It’s not true. There is no regulation.
A third of physicians believe that the FDA has to approve supplements before they’re on the market. If a third of physicians do, that’s a misconception of what’s going on. It’s the Wild West out there.
So, are supplements safe or not?
And you have to know David is a supplement supporter; he also takes supplements. However, many people think it must be safe if it’s on the market. It wasn’t the case for Mrs McClintock.
That’s the ugly, the herbal supplements, the botanicals. Many people don’t realize that’s where we got some of our earlier medicines. That’s where we invented some of our earlier drugs.
The botanicals and herbs are potent. They do work. But in unregulated situations, they can kill you, too.
You will read a lot of cautionary tales today. You might think we are an anti-supplement group, but we’re not. I use a lot of supplements. There’s a balance needed. Two of the most common, powerful supplements I recommend often have a significant risk profile.
One of them is niacin. Niacin has a risk profile in terms of liver damage. The other one is vitamin D3. I’ve done several YouTube videos on patients who used it.
Occasionally, a patient will take one of these vitamin D3 preparations of 25- 50 000 IU, which are made to be taken weekly.
They’re taking them daily. I’ve had people come in with a vitamin D3 level of 135. One had significant acute kidney damage when she came to see me.
We stopped the vitamin D and continued monitoring her kidney function, which popped back up. She ended up doing well.
Many folks who overdose on vitamin D are unaware of the dosage or risks.
You don’t hear a lot about white mulberry. It is supposed to help pre-diabetes and cholesterol management. It’s similar to berberine and several other supplements.
Legal implications behind supplements
Let me mention the size of the supplement industry in America. Last year, it was 43 billion dollars, just in the United States.
Interestingly, in some of the research, it’s been found that the people who need them the most don’t take them. The people who need them the least are the ones that are most likely to take supplements.
The DSHE act of 1994 was a back-and-forth between the industry and the government. The consumers won.
They got the freedom to choose what they wanted, but at the same time, supplements became unregulated. There’s some potential for problems.
One of the compromises was if you have any supplement in your house, you will see in tiny print, “The Food and Drug Administration has not evaluated this supplement. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”
Government and industry double talk at their best.
You’re taking the supplement to cure, diagnose, treat, or prevent disease. It was a compromise between the supplement industry to the government to get the DSHE Act passed. It’s in tiny print. Hardly anybody reads it.
A brief look into the history of supplements
There was another point that David already brought up that I wanted to emphasize. Because of the popularity of supplements, I’ve spent a good bit of time looking at the actual science behind many supplements.
As a result, I’ve started taking more supplements than I had in the past. There is some good evidence behind a lot of different supplements.
Another point that David mentioned is that people say, “I hate statins. Statins are going to kill me. I’m going to take something natural like red yeast rice”.
My response is often. Unfortunately, I’ll find people taking prescription statins and red yeast rice. The original statin was made directly from red yeast rice. We have better statins now. They are better controlled, easier and gentler.
Yet many people say the opposite, “I want to go safe and easy because it’s natural. Therefore, it’s safer and easier”. Think about it- hemlock is natural.
Other not-so-natural supplements of history include Hadacol. It was prominent in the 1940s-early 50s. It was about 12% per cent alcohol or 24 proof. Typical wine is 24-proof, or 12% alcohol. Regular beer is typically ten-proof or 5%.
When people took this vitamin supplement, they felt much better. They didn’t care as much about their aches and pains. I’m not sure if the vitamins or the alcohol content was helping.
It was very popular in the southern part of the United States. Many dry counties in the southern part of America were in the 1930s and 40s. You could buy it in little shot glasses if you didn’t want to commit to the whole bottle.
It did take care of rheumatism and other problems, at least temporarily. I think it was thiamin which is known for helping with different kinds of problems.
Here are some weight loss items. There was weight loss soap from the 1930s. You can’t make this stuff up. There was trim reducing aids cigarettes. These are cigarettes to help you lose weight.
The bottom line here says, “not intended to replace your favourite cigarette, nor to change your present smoking habits”. We wouldn’t want to interfere with your current smoking habits. It was available back in the 1950s.
If you took this too far, took too many vitamins, and had too much weight loss, they had a product for people called” weight on you”.
You could put weight on again because nobody wanted to be skinny back then. This product is no longer available in America. It might have to do with the lack of market.
Other sources of vitamins
Cereal and vitamins this was a big deal back in the 1940s. Grain today has vitamins added; Quaker was the first company to figure out how to add vitamins to their Quaker puffed wheat and puffed rice.
According to multiple sources, from 1946 to 1953, researchers from Quaker Oats Company, MIT and Harvard University conducted experiments at the Walter E. Fernald State School to determine how the minerals from cereals were metabolized.
Parents of disabled children were asked for permission to let their children be members of a Science Club and participate in research. Being a member of the Science Club gave the children special privileges.
The parents were told that the children would be fed a diet high in nutrients. They were not told that their children’s food contained radioactive calcium and iron; the consent form had no information indicating this.
The information obtained from the experiments was used as part of an advertising campaign. The company was later sued because of the experiments. The lawsuit was settled on December 31st 1997
Today you’re going to find that many manufacturers are creating a pretty useless products made out of white flour, sugar, and processed carbohydrates that don’t have much nutritional value. They add supplements to give it some legitimacy.
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One of the things that I hear is, “you’ve got insulin resistance.” It may not have poisoned you in your 20s, but eating too many carbs today is poison to your body. It’s damaging your arteries. That’s kind of theoretical. Wait a minute: you’re telling me I can’t eat oatmeal for breakfast?
I’ve stopped debating this subject. What I say now is to use a blood sugar stick or a Libre and watch your blood sugar before you eat a bowl of oatmeal and after you eat a bowl of oatmeal.
The point I’m making today is one of the strongest misperceptions that oats are good for your heart. “Oatmeal is good for your heart”- they have continued to ride that train and still do. A lot of people eat their product based on that information.
A box of regular old-fashioned Cheerios will say that very thing. A pack of Cheerios says eating it can help lower cholesterol and be suitable for heart health.
They don’t tell you they’re talking about lowering blood cholesterol, which is almost a minor issue these days. But the average American doesn’t know that fact.
They don’t tell you that you have to eat three cups of Cheerios to see that effect on your blood cholesterol. Most people aren’t going to eat that much.
Have you noticed in the grocery store there’s not just one kind of Cheerios anymore? There are many different flavours of Cheerios now. It’s just marketing expanding on a brand. It’s good capitalism. But chocolate-flavoured Cheerios is going in the wrong direction.
There is a science that says it helps your LDL a little bit. Unfortunately, that science is a bit misdirected. And, of course, if you do some other things right, like improving your diet, exercising and identifying if you have inflammation and insulin resistance, it might not be that bad to eat oatmeal once in a while.
One of the first things we do is talk about how you manage your glycemia, the blood sugar, and the sugar in your blood. It’s not always precisely just what you eat, but sometimes it’s the combination of what you eat.
A lot of people say they have eaten oatmeal for many decades. It’s a habit, and they don’t want to change it. We suggest adding a little more butter, decreasing the amount of oatmeal, eating it with a couple of eggs or bacon, and adding peanut butter.
Many people respond very well to putting peanut butter in their diet. Those things will add a little fat and protein and slow the glycemic impact. “Gly” means glucose, and “emic” means blood.
We’re not as concerned about what it looks like on the plate. We’re worried about what it’s doing to your blood sugar. I would like to add that you must have an excellent doctor to help you get where you are today.
Is a “Balanced Diet” enough?
Every diet must contain the right amounts of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, water, and vitamins. The human body is not much of a vitamin maker, so it must get supplies of them from outside sources.
We must have vitamins to promote average growth, maintain good health, and prevent disease. Vitamins are catalysts, not cure-alls.
Usually, the symptoms of vitamin inadequacy are vague and ill-defined. If you don’t feel well, don’t attempt self-diagnosis. See your physician.
Getting enough vitamins from a proper diet is possible, but few of us regularly follow such diets. The vitamins in vitamin supplements are essentially the same as those in foods.
Overcooking may destroy some vitamins. Often vitamins are thrown away in the water their foods are cooked in. Foods, like people, vary widely. No two are alike or contain the exact amounts of anything, including vitamins.
Here’s the bottom line on supplements. We now understand that certain nutrients like the omega-3s and vitamin D can have beneficial effects beyond preventing vitamin deficiencies.
What are now called nutraceuticals, such as these two, are nutrients that are used for specific health improvement purposes.
In general, try to improve the quality of the food you eat. Eat food closer to the way it grows. Eat less processed foods. Today many food manufacturers are adding vitamins to their products. It gives the appearance of having a health benefit.
These are often highly processed foods made with white flour, sugar, colouring and artificial ingredients. They have little nutritional value other than from the added vitamins.
Products like the popular beverage “vitamin water” is just water with several vitamins added along with flavours of fructose and sugar. It’s a product of Coca-Cola and contains the equivalent of seven teaspoons of sugar per bottle.
A 12-ounce can of Coke has nine teaspoons of sugar per bottle. I’ve noticed a lot of people drinking “vitamin water” as part of their so-called healthy lifestyle. Remember- real food doesn’t need to have vitamins added to it.
The “Super 7″
While you have many choices regarding supplements, the Super 7 are among the most important. They include:
• Multiple vitamin and mineral supplements specific for your sex and age
• Calcium
• Vitamin D3
• Vitamin K
• Omega-3s
• DHA & EPA
• Magnesium
• Vitamin C
Remember to use supplements as supplements and not as replacements for responsible eating. Eating junk food with a one-a-day vitamin isn’t do you much good.
This information comes from David’s Ten Bonus Years program that you can get by emailing at davidmeinz.com
Now, you should know there is a generalized trend to say that vitamins are useless; well, until about five years ago, all the studies on multivitamins didn’t show anything.
Then there was something that came out a couple of years ago that may have had some positive impact.
I have been back and forth on multivitamins. I think it’s impractical to believe that any study will say,” here’s a population that took a multivitamin and lived longer and healthier”. There are just too many variables.
As crucial as cardiovascular disease is, just by itself, it’s still less than a third of deaths. You could wipe out the cardiovascular disease in our population, and most deaths will still happen.
Something may be the most common, but that still doesn’t mean it is the only cause. There are several meta-analyses, which means a review of many studies. They often help define an issue or help settle a case.
The researchers found that if you do a meta-analysis of many different studies, multiple vitamin-mineral products do not decrease heart disease or cancer rates. It was pretty definitive. The meta-analyses came out five years or so.
My response is that’s fine. There are so many other things we can do to decrease cardiovascular disease and cancer risk that we don’t have to look at multiple vitamins.
Vitamins aren’t designed to make up for this hectic lifestyle that so many of us have today, where we don’t eat as we should. Your nutritional choices become even more critical.
You have less flexibility to eat so-called “junk food” if you only eat twice daily. Everything you eat has to be highly nutritious.
I think there’s a place for multiple to fill in the gaps. But I never took my multiples to prevent heart disease. I controlled my blood sugar and inflammation to help manage my heart disease risk and cancer.
About 50% of cancer risk is lifestyle-related: too overweight, eating processed foods and lack of exercise.
All of these conditions increase your risk of cancer. If I could put a pill together called lifestyle, I’d win a Nobel Prize because I could cut cancer rates by 50%. So I do not depend on my multiple vitamins to do the job of reducing the two giant killers.
Vitamin D3 and K2
I’m a big fan of both D3 and K2. The evidence is not as clear for K2. The urban myth is that it “takes calcium out of your arteries and puts it in your bones where it should be”. I don’t think that’s what is happening. I think it’s having an impact on insulin resistance.
I would agree there are no extensive studies that are definitive on K2. There are a few studies like the Amsterdam Study. But I don’t think they were looking at the right thing. I don’t think they got to the heart of the matter.
Another comment I’ll make about D3 and K2- even though I’m a big fan of both, I don’t take them together. None of the preparations that link them in one practice considers your dosage and proportion.
I think that we’re much closer to an appropriate dosage of D3. I recommend that people say I need some supplementation, so I’ll take 5 000 international units. Then I’m going to test you.
We use time tests, don’t guess. This is an area where you need to do that. Look for levels of at least 40. I prefer 60 to 90. I get very nervous when they get over 90; when you go into the science and the evidence, the deaths from an overdose of vitamin D3 usually occur around 105-110 and 115 and above.
Let me continue mixing D3 and K2 in the same pill. Typically, you’ll see D3, 2000 international units and K2, 100 micrograms. K2, 100 micrograms, is probably too little. The studies that have looked at this suggest 300-400 micrograms minimally. K2 is not like D3. It’s not dangerous in higher doses.
If you go to some stores like Amazon, you can find good groups like Life Extension, Doctor’s Best and several other good brands using a megadose of K2.
Megadose K2 is beneficial for osteoporosis.
Megadoses are routinely given in Japan as regular therapy; megadose levels are 45 milligrams, as opposed to micrograms. They are a level 50-150 times higher than average doses.
Hypomethylated B Complex
Another popular supplement is the Hypomethylated B complex. We have talked about homocysteine. It’s been noted that elevated homocysteine is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
It’s become more evident that elevated homocysteine is a marker, a biomarker, for problems with methylation. You may be a poor methylator. Dutton has already figured that out, and she’s taking betaine. It has a simple methyl group with three of the hydrogens in a methyl group as a replacement.
Most of us take the methylated B vitamin complex. This is partly because poor methylators use the B vitamins as a pool to store and use methyl groups in our methylation process.
This has to do with oxidation. The Bale-Doneen community talks a lot about oxidation in combination with oxygen. When you go back to introductory chemistry and basic engineering, the opposite of hybrid, or the way to calm down or antidote for combination with oxygen or oxidation, is called reduction.
You can usually use it by adding a hydrogen group; the body does it by adding a methyl group. Z-Dogg said it exists; the science is there. But it’s not significant. Sure, it’s not meaningful if you’re already in the ICU.
I want to mention that one of the reasons this is important is the MTHFR (Methyl Tetra Hidrofolate Reductase) mutation that’s causing this problem.
It is the enzyme that our body uses for this process. The issue is that over half of us have impaired ability to do it. Or you could say only a small group of us (25 to 30%) have an optimized ability to manage methyl groups.
Omega-3
Some points to notice about Omega-3: The body can use only about 10% of omega-3s from plants. It’s called alpha-linolenic acid. The other two, EPA and DHA, are the main omega-3s in seafood. Your body loves those because they are the forms your body uses already. It already has them.
So if you’re taking flax for an omega-3 purpose, I don’t think it’s a very efficient way of doing it. I say the same thing: if you’re in the grocery store- any product that promotes it has omega-3s, look carefully. If ALA or if it says it’s from plant sources, that’s mostly marketing, not nutrition.
A group that just came out with a prescription-strength omega-3 called Vascepa. Vas for vascular and epa for EPA. It’s a purified EPA product. I’ve used it a few times. The group saw some of my content on it on YouTube.
They called me and presented a good case saying there may be some competition between DHA and EPA. You want to get EPA, and you wish not to get DHA. They didn’t talk that much about ALA. They made a pretty good case pushing EPA more than the other two. I’m not sure I agree.
It’s given chiefly for high triglycerides. People ask, how do you know if you have elevated triglycerides? How do you handle it? Once again, the answer is lifestyle and diet.
Get the carbs out of your diet. Carbs stimulate insulin. Insulin decreases our ability to burn fats or triglycerides, and if you manage your carbs regularly, it’s the most effective way to reduce triglycerides.
There are plenty of people that have significant triglyceride problems. I’ve used Vascepa with a lot of success. People ask me, “what’s the best way to decrease my triglycerides?” The FDA has approved the prescription of omega-3.
I would say that the prescription fish oil has to meet the pharmaceutical standards that the supplement industry doesn’t require.
You can be sure of the dosage in the omega-3 pill when you might not have that level of assurance if you’re getting it from a health food store where it’s made as a supplement.
As you can see, we have covered a lot on supplements, there is no easy and definitive answer, but one thing is clear no medication or supplement can solve a lifestyle issue.
If you found this article helpful and want to start taking steps toward reversing your chronic disease, Dr. Brewer and the PrevMed staff are ready to serve you no matter where you’re located.
To find out more, schedule a consult here: prevmedhealth.com
REFERENCES:
1. https://prevmedhealth.com/homocysteine-methylation/https://prevmedhealth.com/vitamin-d-should-you-supplement/
2. https://prevmedhealth.com/does-plant-based-diet-cure-diabetes/
3. https://prevmedhealth.com/aspirin-omega-3-are-they-worth-it/
4. https://prevmedhealth.com/fish-oils-omega-3s-do-they-work/
5. https://prevmedhealth.com/niacin-doesnt-work-wrong-says-aim-high-study-author-pt-1/
6. https://prevmedhealth.com/vitamin-k2-cardiovascular-health-whats-the-real-score/