“Do you take vitamins?” “No,” I answer my patients. “Why not? Aren’t they good for you?” The nuanced answer to that remains no. A truthful answer might be “when it’s been shown you need them.” Most Americans are not vitamin deficient. There is evidence that vitamins can be harmful, not helpful. And what generally gets […]
Dining Out For 100 Trillion (1/2/13)
An Important Six Pounds of You They don’t vote, but they sure make their voices heard. They are legion, but small. They change most aspects of your daily life. But you hardly notice them, rarely show respect, and virtually never give them deserved credit. As a minority group that lives within your extraordinarily diverse ecosystem, […]
Gimme the Pill! Seductions of Supplements (8/22/12)
Every Work Day Just about every day I’m in the office patients come to me clutching a new pill bottle. Inside will be tablets or capsules purportedly containing anywhere from one to 50 or more ingredients. What Do People Want To Know? Will these pills work to cure their sleep problems/Crohn’s disease/heart disease/cancer/irritable bowel syndrome/memory […]
When good things are bad for you – are vitamins too much of a good thing? (10/14/11)
When Good Things Are Bad For You Vitamin – the word itself conjures up healthiness, something vital for life. Without them we can’t live. But can we have too much of them? Yes. Just like we can have too much food. The fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K – all have associated hypervitaminosis […]