Replacing missing dietary nutrients may be necessary – and good business – but it may also be more problematical than it sounds. In the China Study Dr. Campbell, contends that “isolating nutrients and trying to get benefits equal to those of whole foods reveals an ignorance of how nutrition operates in the body”. His argument is not that these nutrients aren’t commonly deficient or that they are unimportant – he agrees they are essential – but only when consumed as food, not supplements.

Dietary supplements are intended to supply nutrients – such as vitamins, minerals, fatty acids or amino acids - missing, depleted or consumed in insufficient quantity for health.

With rising awareness of widespread micronutrient deficiency and concern for the health affects of resulting imbalances, dietary supplementation has become big business. In 2004, there were 1500 manufacturing and repacking facilities for dietary supplements in the US producing about 29,000 unique formulations packed into more than 75,000 distinctly labeled products (1). The industry represents $4.7 billion dollars, and is expected to grow to $6 billion dollars by 2011 (2).

Though the medical utility and regulatory status of dietary supplements remains controversial, two-thirds of 700 physicians attending a 1994 meeting of the American College of Cardiology to discuss this issue acknowledged using daily supplements themselves (3).

In 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a review that more officially condoned supplementation. Summarizing 30-years of articles relating vitamins and chronic disease, the Harvard researchers concluded that general vitamin deficiency put most Americans at heightened risk for osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and cancer (4). They went further to recommend that: “all adults take one multivitamin daily.”

Still, there is clear consensus that people are deficient (or imbalanced) nutritionally, and marginal deficiencies – aside from being associated with cancer, heart disease and neural tube disorders (5) – may have much more subtle ill effects, gradually impairing cell metabolism and becoming evident only after years or decades (6).

So the allied questions of how to replace these missing nutrients, and how they came to be so lacking or out of balance in the first place, are paramount to national health.

As you consider the supplements you have taken (or are taking) and why you were convinced you needed them,
I would love to hear your perspective on these issues!

1. Life Sciences Research Office Report. Recommendations for Adverse Event Monitoring Programs for Dietary Supplements. June 7, 2004.
2. Nutritional Supplements in the U.S. http://www.marketresearch.com. 2006.
3. American College of Cardiology meeting. Family Practice News. March 1, 1994: 10.
4. Fairfield K, Fletcher R. Vitamins for Chronic Disease Prevention: Scientific Review and Clinical Applications. Clinician's Corner, JAMA, 2002; 287: 23.
5. Stampfer MJ, Willit WC. Homocystein and marginal vitamin deficiency. JAMA. 1993; 270: 2,726-2,727.
6. Zimmerman M. Burgerstein’s Handbook of Nutrition. NY, NY: Thieme: 2001