My Mother is Right!

Mom doesn't really believe in taking vitamins or supplements. Get what you need from your food, she says. She said this even before Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food, in which he has three rules. Eat real food. Not too much. Mostly vegetables. In his book he discussed how we fixate on individual nutrients as good guys or bad guys. He traces the history of the heroes-vitamin C in the 70s, vitamin B in the 80s (remember StressTabs?) vitamin E and A in the 90s, calcium and vitamin D now. There are also villains that change over time. First it was protein (that's why cereal got invented for breakfast!), then it was fat, then it was carbohydrates, now it is transfat and high fructose corn syrup. These latest two make more sense as villains since they aren't present in Real Food. But the others? These are the necessary nutrients! It's just breaking the "Not too much" rule that causes problems.

He talked about how the individual nutrient heroes all fell out of favor to some degree as studies showed isolated nutrients not working the way we thought or the way they did when they were inside Real Food. Now there is new news about calcium supplements. It was a large study, recently published, and its conclusion is:

"Conclusions Calcium supplements (without coadministered vitamin D) are associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction. As calcium supplements are widely used these modest increases in risk of cardiovascular disease might translate into a large burden of disease in the population. A reassessment of the role of calcium supplements in the management of osteoporosis is warranted."

The study is much longer than this, of course and tells lots of interesting details if you want to read it. Click here if you do. Notice that the study was about calcium supplements. Not calcium supplements with vitamin D, or similar levels of calcium from food. We don't know about those, since they weren't studied. One of the other interesting things about the study is that it talks about relative risks. Risk of heart attack vs. risk of fracture from osteoporosis.

Some interesting quotes from the study:
"Calcium supplements modestly increase bone density and have marginal efficacy against fracture."

"In this pooled analysis of around 12 000 participants from 11 randomised controlled trials, calcium supplements were associated with about a 30% increase in the incidence of myocardial infarction..."

"Incorporating the results from the current analysis of studies contributing patient level data, treatment of 1000 people with calcium for five years would cause an additional 14 myocardial infarctions, 10 strokes, and 13 deaths, and prevent 26 fractures."

Just more evidence that we ought to Eat Real Food. A supplement is sure easier, but, over and over we are finding out that when you take the nutrients out of food and give them as supplements, they just don't behave the way we think. I guess it is hubris for us to think we understand the complex interactions of all the nutrients in Real Food!