Image source: Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels
I have to admit that I no longer take a daily multivitamin. I have a basketful of medications that I already take daily (and some pills multiple times a day) to control my pre-diabetes and high blood pressure—both lovely gifts that I inherited predispositions for from my parents. Because I’m taking so many daily pills, I’m sure you’re wondering why not just add that additional daily multivitamin?
It’s something I started questioning myself when I was having my daily phone call with my mother. She takes only one multivitamin, Centrum Silver, something that her doctor recommended. I was actually a bit shocked. I thought for sure that she was taking more. But then I stopped and reflected for a moment. I kind of just assumed that because my parents were older that they were a bit more prone to the allures of medical snake oil salesmen. But actually, they are quite happy to follow the guidance of their doctors, you know those professionals that actually have decades of medical training based on decades of medical and scientific research. My parents happily get their yearly flu vaccines, and even though my father is a pretty avid Fox News watcher, they have also gotten all of their Covid boosters, even though only 17% of the total US population has received the updated bivalent Covid booster as of May 2023, according to the CDC.
My TikTok For You Page is awash in wellness…debunkers. Did you think I was going to say wellness influencers? Well, if you thought that, you don’t really know me that well. No, my FYP is full of people tearing apart the latest quackery flowing from these charlatans. Most of these snake oil boosters will wander the aisles of Whole Foods or Costco pointing out all of the poisons in packaged snacks while hawking their own hundred-dollar powders and shakes that have undergone zero studies or regulations. And, of course, they all down bottles full of multivitamins. I saw one woman who drinks coffee until having an egg on toast at 1pm, but she eats 15 multivitamins! Another woman eats three large carrots a day to turn her skin a “healthy” orange color. Their fear mongering has gotten so bad that it’s even become the source of satire videos where people post snippets of these influencers shouting about what’s bad for you: Meat! Meat Substitutes! Apples! Spinach! Bread! Oatmeal! Carbs! Water! Air!
And who can forget the recent brouhaha over Gwyneth Paltrow’s daily diet? Let’s just say if an article with the following title is written about your diet, well, then you’re probably not promoting a healthy, or mentally stable, diet: “Why you shouldn't try Gwyneth Paltrow's bone broth diet and 'rectal ozone therapy'”.
All this to say that my head is pretty straight on my shoulders when it comes to supplements and multivitamins; I’m pretty skeptical of most of them. My ob/gyn did have me take folic acid and B vitamins during my pregnancy, but even doing a cursory Google search shows that studies are all over the place regarding the efficacy of things like B12 supplements for pregnancy (many say that you can get most of what you need through the foods that you eat).
The vitamin and supplement industry is massive. In data from Grand View Research posted on the National Center for Biotechnology Information website, the “nutraceutical and supplements” market was $353 Billion in 2019. This is an industry that the FDA regulates as food but not as a drug. So the FDA does not approve the medical efficacy of any of these billions of dollars of products that have flooded our markets. Is it any wonder that I’m skeptical about taking them?
For now, I don’t take multivitamins. I try to make sure I eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, fiber, protein, and whole grains. I eat chips and snacks, yes, but I do my best to fit in those vitamins through the foods that I eat and the sun that I get when I go outside for my daily exercise.
Comments