Nutritional Supplements

Many people take nutritional supplements to enhance their health. In fact, Americans spend $25 Billion a year on them. For the most part, they have been proven to do absolutely nothing. One exception is fish oil.

Fish oil has been proven to lower triglycerides and can raise the HDL (good cholesterol). It is available as a prescription called Lovaza or as a supplement obtained at drugstores or nutritional supplement stores.  The active ingredients that protect the heart are DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). We recommend patients take approximately 500-1000 mg twice daily. Of course, eating fish many times per week will have the same effect. But in Michigan, it isn’t always so readily available. If a person eats fish five times weekly, his/her heart disease risk is lowered by 40%. With one meal a week of fish, it is lowered 15%.

Up until recently, it was thought that flax seed oil would do the same thing as fish oil. Unfortunately it does not.  It contains omega-3s fatty acids, but not in the DHA or EPA forms.

Other supplements proven not to do any good in adults:

Multivitamins: 162,000 women took them for 8 years in the Women’s Health Initiative and had no decrease in disease.

Vitamin A: JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) found the death rate higher among vitamin A takers. There were 47 trials examined.

Beta-carotene: Actually increases lung cancer risk. Two studies have been done.

Vitamin C: JAMA in 2007 found no benefit of megadoses in preventing heart disease. A study of 15,000 doctors found no reduction in heart or cancer risk.

Selenium: NCI (National Cancer Institute) had a study of 35,000 men and found no reduction of prostate cancer.

Zinc: Nose swabs were pulled off the market due to patients permanently losing their sense of smell. The lozenges are still available but have no medical proof of efficacy.

An excellent article in Forbes Executive Health, September 7, 2009, p. 60-62 summarizes these findings.

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