Should You Take Your Vitamins?
Will daily doses of vitamin C really help prevent a cold?
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Consumer Ripoffs
| Skeptoid #103 June 03, 2008 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
|
By Brian Dunning, Skeptoid Podcast
Episode 103, June 03, 2008
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4103
What do you do when someone in your household catches a cold? If you're like me, you run for the medicine cabinet and start megadosing yourself with vitamin C. Everyone knows this is the best way to stave off a cold. Everyone also seems to think that vitamins are like spinach for Popeye: Whether you need them or not, taking extra vitamins when you don't necessarily have a deficiency is perceived to bestow some sort of super-health, as if you can somehow be even healthier than healthy. If you take any vitamin supplement, and you do not have a diagnosed vitamin deficiency, please listen carefully to the following.
The idea that vitamin C is a wonder drug for preventing colds and other illnesses became widely popular around 1970, due largely to some books written by one of our greatest scientists, Linus Pauling. Along with Marie Curie, Pauling shares the distinction of being one of only two people to receive Nobel Prizes in two different fields. He received his first in chemistry in 1954 for his pioneering work characterizing the nature of chemical bonds. He received the Peace Prize in 1962 for his work warning of the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation and radioactive fallout. Ironically, it was this type of activism that had almost prevented his being able to travel to Stockholm to accept his first prize: In those days, the United States was in the habit of denying passports to citizens who were sufficiently outspoken against nuclear weapons. Pauling's contributions to 20th century science are inestimable. He described the structure of the atomic nucleus. He was a key player in the theorized, and later proven, helical structure of DNA. He was practically the founding father of the whole science of molecular biology. He was even involved in the development of one of the first commercially available electric cars, the 1959 Henney Kilowatt.
So how is it possible that such an accomplished genius could be fundamentally wrong for much of his career? Let's set aside the notion that a scientifically brilliant mind must always be a rational, objective, and unbiased mind, and look at Pauling's later writings. In 1970, he published a book called Vitamin C and the Common Cold, in which he outlined the concept he called orthomolecular medicine. Orthomolecular means the "right molecule". Its central thesis is that megadoses of vitamin C prevent colds and can prevent or treat other conditions. He expanded this to include cancer when he wrote 1979's Vitamin C and Cancer. In 1986 he published How to Feel Better and Live Longer, in which he broadened all his concepts and claimed that megadoses of all vitamins would improve your overall health, would slow aging, and increase your enjoyment of life. It's important to note that orthomolecular medicine is not a concept shared by responsible doctors or dietitians; it is squarely in the alternative medicine camp. The Mayo Clinic tested Pauling's claims about treating cancer with vitamin C in three different randomized controlled trials, all of which showed no beneficial effect. Pauling spent years passionately trying in vain to discredit these trials, which created something of a gap between himself and mainstream medical science. In fact, despite the staggering importance of his earlier contributions to science, by the end of his life Dr. Pauling was largely regarded as a crank by his former colleagues, much like Nikola Tesla, by some accounts.
There have been at least 30 well-performed controlled trials to find out whether vitamin C at various dosages can prevent colds, or reduce their severity. What these studies have determined is that vitamin C has no preventive value at all; you're just as likely to catch a cold if you take daily megadoses as you are if you take nothing at all. A few of these trials did find small reductions in the severity or duration of the colds, but most trials did not show even this small effect.
I know all of this, but every time the cold and flu season comes around, I still catch myself eyeing that vitamin C bottle. I'm like the jungle native who's been baptised by the missionaries, but whenever the volcano erupts, I still run to the stone pagan idol. My own experience is that I've never gotten sick whenever I've been regularly taking vitamin C. And, this is the same experience reported by a lot of people. So it would seem that our own experiences support what Dr. Pauling was saying, and disputes what testing has revealed. We all have to believe our own eyes, and to believe our own first-hand experiences, right?
Well, yes, but we also have to understand the way our brain interprets our experiences. Practically the whole reason for the science of psychology is that what we think and feel is not necessarily 100% translated to the real world. It's certainly possible to misinterpret something someone tells us, so isn't it also possible to misinterpret other experiences? Well, we do misinterpret our own perceptions and our own experiences, and we all do it every day. Is it possible that you did have a minor cold, but since you were taking vitamin C the thought never entered your mind that it could be a cold? Maybe you just attributed it to seasonal allergies, and even though the facts are that you got a cold while taking vitamin C, your own perception confirms that the vitamin C was 100% effective. Is it possible that you don't exactly remember the number of colds you got last year? Of course it is. And, perceptual biases aside, is there any chance that you wouldn't have happened to catch a cold anyway? Of course that's possible too.
Thus, you can't reasonably consider your own experience as evidence that vitamin C is effective against colds. Your only evidence is anecdotal and unreliable due to a variety of perceptual phenomena; and in any case your own test of vitamin C was an uncontrolled, unblinded test with no statistical validity.
But you're not alone. A lot of people believe that vitamins will prevent colds, and the alternative medicine industry has always been quick to capitalize on this. There's a product called Airborne that is a repackaging of an ancient Chinese remedy called yin chiao. It contains undisclosed quantities of a few herbs and vitamins, including vitamins A, C, and E. Their marketing slogan is "Invented by a schoolteacher", which for some reason people view as meritorious, even though all it really means is "Invented by someone with no medical background whatsoever". For a decade they made false advertising claims that their product could prevent and treat colds. Sure enough, eventually the law caught up with them, and fined them $23 million and ordered them to refund the purchase of anyone who ever bought their product. They're still in business, although they now make the claim that Airborne boosts your immune system. As any doctor will tell you, "immune system boosting" is pure pseudoscience. It's medically meaningless, but that's a whole other subject that we'll examine in a future episode.
Not only is there a lack of evidence that these products have any beneficial effects, there is well established evidence that they can be dangerous. If you take the recommended dose of Airborne to fight a cold, you're taking enough of a vitamin C overdose to put yourself at risk of kidney stones. Although the popular folk wisdom teaches that extra vitamins are simply excreted in the urine, this is largely untrue. Vitamin overdosing is called hypervitaminosis or vitamin toxicity, and can lead to serious effects. Hypervitaminosis A can lead to birth defects, liver problems, osteoporosis, skin problems, and hair loss. Hypervitaminosis D can cause dehydration, vomiting, anorexia, hypercalcemia and kidney damage including kidney stones. Hypervitaminosis E can lead to blood problems including high cholesterol and can act as an anticoagulant. It should be noted that to be at risk of any of these conditions, you would need to significantly overdose over a long period of time. Brief or modest overdoses of any vitamin supplement are unlikely to cause problems. Interestingly, vitamin K is an effective treatment for many hypervitaminosis toxicity conditions.
A common criticism I receive is "Why should I believe you, when upstanding companies like Airborne, and practically everyone else in the world, tells me I should take vitamins?" Well, I hope you don't trust me. I hope that if you're truly interested, you'll ask a medical doctor. And by "doctor" I don't mean a naturopath, a health food store clerk, or anyone else who's in the business of selling you vitamin supplements. The simple fact is that nearly everyone who eats anything close to a balanced diet in any developed country is extremely unlikely to have a vitamin deficiency. Thus, there is no plausible benefit to vitamin supplementation for general health or wellness.
© 2008 Skeptoid Media, Inc.
References & Further Reading
Aronson, V. The Dietetic Technician: Effective Nutrition Counseling. Westport: AVI Pub Co., 1986. 65, 85.
Barrett, S. "High Doses of Vitamin C Are Not Effective as a Cancer Treatment." Your Guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions. Quackwatch, 23 Oct. 2008. Web. 10 Jan. 2010. <http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/c.html>
Bhagavan, N.V. Medical Biochemistry, Fourth Edition. San Diego: Academic Press, 2002. 901-928.
Editors. Harvard Health Letter. Boston: President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2011. 4.
Goertzel, T., Goertzel, B. Linus Pauling: A Life In Science And Politics. New York: Basic Books, 1995.
Taylor, Eric N., Stampfer, Meir J., Curhan, Gary C. "Dietary Factors and the Risk of Incident Kidney Stones in Men: New Insights after 14 Years of Follow-up." Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 31 Dec. 2004, Volume 15, Number 12: 3225-3232.
Weichselbaum, E. "Can supplements help prevent or treat a common cold?" Nutrition Bulletin. 1 Mar. 2010, Number 35: 26-29.
Reference this article:
Dunning, B.
"Should You Take Your Vitamins?" Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
3 Jun 2008. Web.
25 May 2013. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4103>
Discuss!
10 most recent comments | Show all 81 comments
Too true Marco..just add, if you want to go pseudo science, dont tell your children.
Marco, do you understand the unbelievable billions wasted on EB studies? This is where I have a major problem. Funding that could be used for science is wasted for witchcraft and folk who think they have a right to have a feckless stab in the dark.
How many universities are wasting resources in "natural" programs teaching young people pure and applied scientific ignorance such as chiropracty, acupuncture, naturopathy and homeopathy?
I am sorry, if you want to do junk science, do it at a junk school on junk bonds.
Mud, In a Sinful shire and a Sinful state, Oz
June 12, 2012 7:41pm
the problem here has always been the following: the propounders of vitamin c megadosage state you need MASSIVE amounts of vitamin c, say 40 grams a day, when you have a cold - and that will reduce its duration & severity; then for whatever dumbarse reason, the skeptics go back again and again to some arcane definition of "mega-" that is just 1 gram (!!) and test it, find no correlation, and then say "no evidence, again"... it's pathetic. not a single one of these 30 tests that refute megadosage claims, actually uses megadosage. so basically, how about they start trying out the 30 or 40 grams a day. i dont get it
eugene, Birmingham,
July 16, 2012 1:14pm
As I consistently maintain Eugene, if you prescribe yourself a chemical that is touted as a pharmaceutical or a therapeutic, buy it and consume it without medical advice, then you come into the class of hypochondriac.
If you prescribe a therapeutic therapy in the hands of someone who is medically untrained you are suffering at the hands who is clearly and correctly labeled as suffering Munchhausen's by proxy, Only getting paid for it rather than going to prison.
In either case, its the hypochondriac at fault for fostering the practice and economy that supports these.
Mud, back in Sanity, NSW
July 31, 2012 5:21am
The sad reality is that Doctors are NOT trained in Nutritional Medicine.They only know drugs.One needs to find the 'cause'and eliminate it .Not relieve 'symptoms'that keep coming back in worse forms of mutated diseases.So called 'scientific' tests done on vitamins by Big Pharma will naturally have results skewed in their favour so drugs look more effective.They always use 'synthetic' versions which are toxic to the body and/or very low doses to 'prove' they don't work.Fact is in 27 years NOT ONE person has died from taking vitamins.In contrast many millions have died-'from correctly administered Pharma drugs'in same period of time.This is all documented in their own journals.The vit A they use is synthetic and toxic.A quality nutritional company will use Betacarotene as it's source of Vit A. Non toxic as the body will convert it as required.If everyone was getting their proper nutrition from a 'good diet' then we should never see Chronic Degenerative Diseases.In todays world of 'processed' adultrated, pesticide laden,chemicalised food the body is struggling to keep in homeostasis.Society is full of sickly,low energy or really diseased people.The modern food pyramid is acidic and only Alkalinity will help keep Dis-ease away.
Dick, Sydney
September 22, 2012 6:53am
Dick, Sydney:
"One needs to find the 'cause'and eliminate it .Not relieve 'symptoms'that keep coming back in worse forms of mutated diseases"
So antibiotics are only relieving symptoms and not fighting the infection? Have you ever taken any? I have had a few times in life and for sure without them I would be dead or have lost a limb by now.
Do you have a medical doctorate? I am curious as to how you would diagnose an illness, with dowsing rods and pendulums? The system we have in the west is pretty good. In the UK the triage system works pretty well, and as I have said it has certainly saved my life, and no dose of vitamins, naturalistic or bullshit homoeopathic remedy was going to do that.
Tell me if you distrust doctors so much how do you get your broken bones mended? What kind of woo bullcrap can remove an infected appendix or tooth? These doctors have the same medical foundation as any general 'in-the-pay-of-big-pharma' physician.
In my time I have come across anti-medicine folks who take recreational drugs, get drunk regularly and smoke a couple of packs a day - all things I do not do - who tried telling me the same kind of crap you are on about.
What is up with those people? Pharma companies spend years of research proving drugs and their production methods, yet somehow some local pusher is making a viable clean working product?
I can remember that woman a few years ago claiming that cancer could be cured by her woo, then she died from some melanoma.
David "sheeple" Healey, Maidenhead, UK
September 22, 2012 2:50pm
Tell you what works for me - large salads. Just the usual veggies and a chopped up apple. Can't support the claim with any scientific evidence but it sure helps get rid of a cold.
Joe, BC
October 26, 2012 2:23pm
I think I can answer the last two posts.
Whilst you all expect big corporations to behave like socialist umbrellas, the real world doesnt. This is why we have the FDA (US) or the TGA (Oz) in the general world to act as regulators.
The general view is different
But lets face it, our regulatory bodies are constrained by the populace input. If we complain about too much mercury in a food and exemplify a mercury rich :traditional medicine, how is that regulatory body supposed to react? By applyiing science.
This is the very reason why the FDA or TGA has a standard on things like acupuncture needles or even organic/bioethical standards.
Think about it, our regulatory authorities cater for magic whilst reducing harm.
Whe the day arrives that popular opinion has quacks in court on the main rather than the mean, that is the day when popular opinion think science is real and magic is bunk.
For science, vitalogy is pure faux faux philosophy without a singe number to its name.
You may as well put a pin in a mattress to provide fee energy (acuncture), hold a rat to a blanket (naturopathy) or shake a salamander inside a magnetic field (chiropracty) to get free energy or healing in you neighbours 16 miles away ( homeopathy)
TCM.. how much more does arteminsin need to fail???? How many diseass does it need to be good for past a trite phase 2 trial????
I can assure you, arteminsin will work for something...one day...just keep publishing trials...
TCM is not vitalogy
Mud, At virtually missing point, NSW, OZ,
November 17, 2012 11:10pm
@Mud--Once again you make my heart pound with joy.
@Dick--Actually, you're wrong. There are a lot of doctors of all types who are investigating dietary medicine. For example, a prestigious American doctor recently announced that adequate amounts of vitamin D are absolutely necessary for heart health, and that a recent study had discovered that far too many people weren't getting sufficient vitamin D. Some because they don't get enough sunshine. Some because they're vitamin D resistant.
Doctors who deal in celiac disease, for another example, deal almost exclusively in dietary medicine. They use modern medical techniques to diagnose the issue, and then dietary techniques to provide relief.
The difference is that there are diseases and problems that you can't fix with diet. People ate a lot healthier 100 years ago, and exercised a great deal more. But they died in massive numbers any time a bacteria came along, because they couldn't fix it with diet and exercise.
There needs to be a balance.
HistoryTalking, The Real World
January 23, 2013 4:55pm
I wouldnt be that quick in stating that folk ate a lot healthier 100 years ago.
I would suggest that a hell of a lot of westerners over eat a healthy diet suitable to us humans.
I have spent a weekend with a fallacy generator and have heard every ludicrous claim on diet and apricots repeated ad nauseaum. Thankfully Pho chased him off for interfering with the good work that the clan generates at the slave farm
Mud, Pho's Slave palace, Gerringong the Brave, NSW
March 14, 2013 1:46am
Make a comment about this episode of Skeptoid (please try to keep it brief & to the point). Anyone can post:
You can also discuss this episode in the Skeptoid Forum, hosted by the James Randi Educational Foundation, or join the Skeptalk email discussion list.
What's the most important thing about Skeptoid?
![[Valid RSS]](/images/valid-rss-rogers.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
Don't you just love the way everyone has not only an opinion, but an ego as well. What works for one, (regardless of what science claims, and regardless of the Woo factor,) may not work for another. Do you really want to trust a medical professional that graduated at the bottom of their class? Or a nutritionist from one of the infamous study at home schools. What ever happened to "Personal Accountability?" You, my dear Friend, are responsible for your own health! If you believe drugs work, which they do...sometimes, although only for treating symptoms, then by all means, use them. If you believe high dosages of vitamins will get you to the Promise Land, by all means, take them. Personal accountability! Try some today...
Peace/Love/Happy!
Marco
Marco, Texas
March 27, 2012 9:43am