The Washington Post discusses a recent government report on studies of the health benefits of vitamins. Apparently, they aren’t quite as beneficial as most people believe — or as the vitamin industry wants us to believe:
Several studies suggest that consumers believe that taking a multivitamin promotes health and can prevent some common diseases, but the evidence for both is “quite thin,” said the panel’s chairman, J. Michael McGinnis, senior scholar at the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine.
Some of the evidence had conflicting results. For example, studies found a clear protective benefit against lung cancer for those who eat a diet rich in fruit and vegetables. But when Scandinavian scientists gave study volunteers beta carotene, commonly found in orange-colored fruit and vegetables, the risk of lung cancer in smokers increased.
None of this is all that surprising — some vitamins may help in some cases, but other vitamins may actually hurt in other cases if the quantities are high enough. What is surprising (thought perhaps it shouldn’t be) is the reaction by the vitamin industry. They didn’t challenge the results of the studies, arguing that they were performed incorrectly in some fashion. No, they challenged the fact that the studies were scientific in the first place.
The dietary supplement industry criticized the panel for not considering less scientifically rigorous studies that point to multiple benefits from multivitamin and mineral use.
“They have done exactly what they set out to do, which is a review based solely on randomized controlled trial data, which results in a misleading picture,” said Annette Dickinson, past president of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, an industry trade association. [emphasis added]
Consider this very carefully: the vitamin industry is upset that less scientific studies were excluded and that the report is based upon randomized controlled trial data — data which everyone otherwise agrees is the gold standard for producing reliable, scientific evidence. The vitamin industry, though, thinks that what they acknowledge as scientifically rigorous studies are not reliable but, instead, are misleading.
We shouldn't be surprised that the vitamin industry isn't happy with the conclusions of this report, but it's mind-boggling that Annette Dickinson could say any of this with a straight face. I never thought I'd encounter a person or position which made young-earth creationism appear to be scientifically reasonable by comparison, but Annette Dickinson has achieved exactly that. Creationists at least deny that evolution is scientific; Annette Dickinson, in contrast, goes further by denying that rigorous science is reliable in the first place.
I think that Annette Dickinson should be required to forego the fruits of scientifically rigorous studies because, if she's at all honest, she should consider them all to be misleading. This means not taking advantage of practically anything provided by modern medicine since all those medications and treatments are approved following scientifically rigorous studies.
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Perhaps the emphasis was on ‘rigorous’ rather than ‘scientifically’. She’s probably upset with how it’s done.
Like for example, beta carotene might be subjective. Being fat soluble, it would need proper delivery systems, and anything in excess, even macronutrients, can become toxic and have opposite effects in large quantities.
What quantities were used in this?