That’s a tempting conclusion but not a rational one. I know, for example, that:
If people don’t eat things containing vitamin C their teeth will fall out.
People who live underground or, say, near one of the poles, need to consume more vitamin D.
Drinking a bottle of undiluted cordial when you are diabetic will probably damage you.
Living on a diet of almost entirely maize will give you dementia (and assorted other bodily symptoms up to and including death) due to Niacin deficiency. Consuming a large dose of Niacin will totally freak you out unless you know what to expect. Your skin will flush and hurt like hell but fortunately be doing far less damage than it may appear.
There are 8 amino acids that humans need to consume in their diet. Failure to consume these amino acids can cause things like Kwashiorkor.
Point taken—“nothing at all” is certainly an exaggeration—but most people in the United States don’t suffer from acute micronutrient deficiency (or amino acid deficiency).
Incidentally, another bit of “conventional wisdom” that’s been overturned, along the lines of the butter/margarine reversal: according to controlled studies, large doses of antioxidants reduces life expectancy. And by “antioxidants” I mostly mean vitamin E:
Vitamin E supplementation was shown to increase the risk of heart failure in a 2005 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Lonn, et al., which studied 7,000 people (JAMA. 2005 Mar 16;293(11):1338-47. Effects of long-term vitamin E supplementation on cardiovascular events and cancer: a randomized controlled trial.)
Incidentally, another bit of “conventional wisdom” that’s been overturned, along the lines of the butter/margarine reversal: according to controlled studies, large doses of antioxidants reduces life expectancy. And by “antioxidants” I mostly mean vitamin E:
This does make you wonder just what on earth people were thinking when they thought extremely large doses of something fat soluble was a good idea. Crazy. I am somewhat wary of saying ‘large doses of antioxidants reduces life expectancy’… that seems to be completely the wrong inference to make. Melatonin is a far stronger anti-oxidant than vitamin E but ridiculously high doses of melatonin don’t cause the same problem. (By ridiculously high I refer to levels of antioxidising power that would require easily fatal levels of vitamin E to achieve.) Why don’t they try the generalisation “large doses of fat soluble vitamins”? That’s far more credible.
That’s a tempting conclusion but not a rational one. I know, for example, that:
If people don’t eat things containing vitamin C their teeth will fall out.
People who live underground or, say, near one of the poles, need to consume more vitamin D.
Drinking a bottle of undiluted cordial when you are diabetic will probably damage you.
Living on a diet of almost entirely maize will give you dementia (and assorted other bodily symptoms up to and including death) due to Niacin deficiency. Consuming a large dose of Niacin will totally freak you out unless you know what to expect. Your skin will flush and hurt like hell but fortunately be doing far less damage than it may appear.
There are 8 amino acids that humans need to consume in their diet. Failure to consume these amino acids can cause things like Kwashiorkor.
Point taken—“nothing at all” is certainly an exaggeration—but most people in the United States don’t suffer from acute micronutrient deficiency (or amino acid deficiency).
Incidentally, another bit of “conventional wisdom” that’s been overturned, along the lines of the butter/margarine reversal: according to controlled studies, large doses of antioxidants reduces life expectancy. And by “antioxidants” I mostly mean vitamin E:
Source.
This does make you wonder just what on earth people were thinking when they thought extremely large doses of something fat soluble was a good idea. Crazy. I am somewhat wary of saying ‘large doses of antioxidants reduces life expectancy’… that seems to be completely the wrong inference to make. Melatonin is a far stronger anti-oxidant than vitamin E but ridiculously high doses of melatonin don’t cause the same problem. (By ridiculously high I refer to levels of antioxidising power that would require easily fatal levels of vitamin E to achieve.) Why don’t they try the generalisation “large doses of fat soluble vitamins”? That’s far more credible.
/me shrugs
I don’t really know all the details, but “Eat this because it has antioxidants, which are good for you” still seems like a bit of a lie...
Good point.