, or that someone would share their insight with me
I posted some time ago my thoughts about which minerals and vitamins at high doses are better avoided, and especially folic acid, which for a large part of the population is probably to their disadvantage,
in this post on an other forum.
And actually totally agree that food fortification almost equals medical treatment without having been asked for informed consent. I personally want to know what amounts of added nutrients I'm getting. Needless to say, I avoid any industrially produced foods. Therefore don't really have this problem of unknown amounts of nutrients but moreover unknown other chemical additives through prepackaged foods.
I agree this aspect of unknown additives is really scary, just got as gift some packets of 'Wobenzym' from someone no more using it, of which before I read good things. But always been to costly for my budget. What a shock when I read the ingredients label under other ingredients (in German, since I don't ever needed to know their english translations):
Mikrokristaline Cellulose, Lactose-Monhydrat, gereinigtes Wasser, Macrogol 6000, Talkum, Eudragit L12,5, Triethylcitrat, Saccharose, Calciumcarbonat, Titandioxid E-171, Povidon, Kaolin, Vanilin, Farbe Chinolingelb E-104, Erythrosin E-127, gebleichtes Wachs, Carnaubawachs, Schellack
- beside about 200mg beneficial ingredients of rutin, papain, trypsin, chemotrypsin, bromelain, and pancreas powder. Thanks god, there are many much more considerate supplement companies, that do take care to not add all that trash. But Wobenzym is produced by a pharma company here. One always has to read the ingredients label, if necessary with a magnifying glass!
(for example, chronic excessive intake of supplemental zinc can reduce the absorption of copper and iron)
Regardless of zinc, most omnivorous males and postmenopausal females rather suffer from iron overload. To fortify with iron without a warning of the exact milligrams is indeed worrying.
Supplementation itself especially of iron, zinc, copper or manganese is of course only wise with being self-informed and having done most basic lab-testing. For example I had copper overload which needed high doses of zinc and avoidance of copper in supplements for many years to correct.
Adverse effects of excess calcium intake have been reported in both men and women.
See the video
Death by Calcium. I'm of the view that calcium needs are just too individual, so better stay away from any supplementation unless you know your calcium levels. In my case years long deficiency came up into the middle range with vitamin D alone.
The ATBC trial evaluated the benefit of alpha-tocopherol (50 mg/day) and/or beta carotene (20 mg/day) on the incidence of lung cancer and other cancers in 29,133 male smokers. Men who received beta carotene had a higher incidence of lung cancer after 18 months which increased progressively thereafter.
That's a good example to exercise verifying studies about their actual significance. If one searches one finds for example this
follow-up review:
These findings suggest that the adverse effects of high-dose β-carotene on lung cancer incidence and overall mortality observed in the CARET and ATBC trials may be related to the pharmacologic doses of β-carotene used and the resultant supra-physiologic serum concentrations of β-carotene. This explanation is consistent with the apparent protective effect of β-carotene on lung cancer incidence and mortality reported in observational epidemiologic studies ( 2 – 4 ) , as well as in the recently reported 10-year post-intervention follow-up of the General Population Nutrition Intervention Trial of the combination of 30 mg α-tocopherol, 15 mg β-carotene, and 50 μg selenium in a poorly nourished Chinese population, which showed continued protection against total and cancer mortality ( 14 ) , and the null results from the PHS. Indeed, we agree with Forman and Altman ( 15 ) , who noted that “the effect on disease with long latency periods of pharmacological doses of specific micronutrients over a few years in middle-aged adults is a different scenario from physiological doses of the same micronutrients provided as part of a balanced diet on a lifelong basis, starting in childhood”. We also agree with Mayne et al. ( 16 ) , who noted that “interventions aimed at restoring levels of a given nutrient in populations at nutritional risk… may be more effective than interventions that emphasize populations with adequate nutrient status and supplementing to supra-adequacy” ( 16 ) .
Emphasis added by me. That's why I warned in my post linked to above especially of beta-carotene in higher doses too. Check your multivitamin if it contains too much. Also the vitamin E used available at that time of the ABTC trial was only synthetic, which
@Hip already warned from. And nowadays can be easily avoided, at least in supplements.
Long ago I looked in the actual numbers of this trial, sadly can't find the sources now again. It's however a good example to understand the difference between absolute and relative risk.
Treatment: 14 560 patients
Placebo: 14 573 patients
No. of lung cancers
Treatment: 474
Placebo: 402
The relative difference in this case is 18%, but the absolute is smaller than 1%
It does take some self-education for not making the usual mistakes in supplementation. But in the end there is only a limited number of nutrients to learn about.
Ingredients labels can be read and problematic nutrients as well as fortified food can be avoided.