Killer Vitamins or Bad Science

The recent study on antioxidants published in the Journal of the American Medical Association is bad science and worse public relations for the supplement industry. 

The research examined a select group of studies that gave supplements to really sick men and women. This isn’t a great way to learn much about anything other than really sick people tend to die.  Additionally the researchers excluded any studies that showed benefits. Regardless of its faults the scientists concluded and the media widely reported that antioxidants were potentially harmful and in some cases could hasten death.

What’s most remarkable about the JAMA study is that it shifts the public conversation from one of “can vitamins and supplements help me” or  “can vitamins and supplements make you live longer” or “can vitamins and supplements reverse disease,” to do vitamins kill?  Given the wide range of media coverage, much of which failed to explore the research’s shortcomings, one might have expected a concerted effort from the supplement industry to reach out to an increasingly confused public. Yet nothing other than a standard variety of mundane press releases were issued, none of which received media coverage.  While various reports, notably Tara Parker Pope’s story in the Wall Street Journal, included comments from industry experts the lack of a concerted response is reason for concern. 

Despite nearly three years of lousy publicity fostered by questionable science that refutes years of research and thousands of studies on Vitamin E and Echinacea among other studies, the vitamin and nutritional supplement has been as proactive as a corpse. 

The passage of the Dietary Supplement and Education Act in 1994 (commonly referred to as DSHEA) was a huge victory for the nutritional supplement industry.  This bill allowed supplement manufacturers to state so-called ‘structure-function’ claims on product packaging and promotional literature.  Prior to this bill's passage, it was illegal for manufacturers to make any such claims. Doing so would result in a FDA raid of your warehouse.

Upon DSHEA's passage many products soon offered information to consumers as packages promoted claims noting benefits to the immune function (a wide range of products, notably the herb Echinacea), prevents bone loss (calcium), supports a good mood (St. John's Wort), maintains proper anti-inflammatory response (Turmeric) and more.  Furthermore product names now included keys to their use, such as Osteo-Support, Mental Edge, Positive Thoughts, CardioSupport, Occugard and thousands more. 

The addition of this information to products played a large part in the huge growth in nutritional supplement sales that took place at the end of the 1990s. Furthermore this regulatory change allowed retailers, led by GNC, to arrange store shelves by health condition rather than ingredient, furthering consumer acceptance and ease of self-diagnosis and selection of products.  No longer did consumers face a large wall of supplements bereft of any useful information (other than the occasional sales clerk).

Yet upon passage of this bill the industry failed to recognize that with the ability to state product claims would could greater scrutiny, from curious researchers to those who claim supplements are snake oil. 

While an industry group, the Dietary Supplement Education Alliance has conducted several remarkable studies none have received any publicity.  The most notable, conducted by health care research consultants The Lewin Group, showed that geriatric populations taking omega-3 fatty acids and the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin could save the Medicare system  $3.1 billion and $2.5 billion respectively over five years due to less hospitalizations, trips to the doctors and “avoided transitions to dependency,” due to less cardiac conditions and cataracts.

At the time of the study I wrote about it on my website and contacted the then newly elected president of the Dietary Supplement Education Alliance.  For over four months I emailed and called all in an attempt to write an opinion piece that could be submitted to newspapers across the country.  I received no response for months and finally gave up.  A year later at a trade show, a salesman who like me was extremely frustrated with the lack of response told me that Dietary Supplement Education Alliance efforts were aimed at lobbying Congress.  He added that he too was shocked at the lack of broad based efforts aimed towards educating consumers.