The Los Angeles Times reports:
A series of trials also shows that taking vitamins and minerals has no effect on preventing strokes, heart disease or other ailments. In some cases, they can even cause harm.
They were some of the most promising medicines of the 1990s — wonder pills that appeared to fight cancer, heart disease, stroke and other ailments.
Laboratory tests and initial studies in people suggested that lowly vitamins could play a crucial role in preventing some of the most intractable illnesses, especially in an aging population. The National Institutes of Health gave them the same treatment as top-notch pharmaceutical drugs, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in elaborate clinical trials designed to quantify their disease-fighting abilities.
Now the results from those trials are rolling in, and nearly all of them fail to show any benefit from taking vitamin and mineral supplements.
This month, two long-term trials with more than 50,000 participants offered fresh evidence that vitamin C, vitamin E and selenium supplements don’t reduce the risk of prostate, colorectal, lung, bladder or pancreatic cancer. Other recent studies have found that over-the-counter vitamins and minerals offer no help in fighting other cancers, stroke or cardiovascular disease.
Research has even suggested that in some circumstances, the supplements can be unsafe.
The article will no doubt come as unwelcome news to Patrick Holford, our favourite vitamin salesman.
Incidentally, visit Patrick’s website. Surely there’s no more reliable indicator of all-consuming vanity than using your own face as a favicon?
Click here to sign up for free RSS updates.
Download the free 
Join 
8 responses
Are the standards of the originator of “Counterknowledge” much higher than some of his targets?:
http://www.culturewars.com/2008/Counter.html
Apparently not.
Gee, I wonder who did the study? I wonder if it was done by people who have been educated and paid for by pharmaceutical companies? I have been helping people for decades with nutritional supplements with great results….much better than medical doctors. I do it for free and encourage people to learn about their issues, not just ‘take a pill’ This site is full of nonsense, and Milo Yiannopoulos is a goof!
Steve6f8eh:
Surely vitamins are only required in small quantities, provided by a healthy diet.
I appreciate the modern diet is shit and it would be a safe assertion that vitamin deficiency is a contributer to ill health in itself.
I think, however that the people who use them are probably the ones who least need them and vice versa.
I wonder if the subjects of the study might have been of a health concious disposition, hence already receiving the necessary vitamins contained in their diet.
I do acknowledge that the pharma and food industries lean on these type of studies, there have been numerous reports of biased scientific studies offering misleading or slanted results,
All research of this type has an inherent problem - there is no way of knowing whether or not a person taking part in such a trial would or wouldn’t have got cancer anyway! This site is full of s**t.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8020925.stm
Presumably there is some benefit from vitamins after all. At least a monetary one.
It seems the large food and pharmaceutical corporations are seeking to edge out the vitamin competition (Holford and Co.) and become sole vendors.
Are you people actually this intellectually superficial, promoting the frippery above (and elsewhere on this site) as some kind of “scientific” final word, or are you being paid by various corps (etc.) to promote nonsense as authoritative “science”. For all your seeming intellectual pretensions, the bits I read here smack of tabloid-level superficiality and subpar intellect. I love, for example, how the 15 questions for 9/11 truthers start with (and revolve around) assumptions no thinking 9/11 skeptic assumes. Straw-man much? There are valid questions for the Truthers, of course, but none of them are featured here. Talk about bollocks — this site is a cornucopia!
I REALLY liked your post and blog! It took me a little bit to find your site…but I book marked it. Would you mind if I but a link back to my site?
I like the above comments. I would like to share how to prosper using counter-conspiracy. Of course, we can’t wipe out evil & conspiracies, but we can prosper with multiple streams of income as we put up a good fight. Here are my ideas for combating what I believe r the 3 main conspiracies. #1. Health-care. Did u know all diseases r preventable & reversable? U can prosper as learn more about this by calling toll-free:1-800-223-8225 & sign up as a distributor. If u give for a sponsor #: 480223-2, your sponsor will be my wife who is a natural health-care practioner — she knows how to eat well, get well, & stay well, under normal circumstances. It will cost u $40.00 to sign up as a Natures Sunshine Dealer, but u get $40.00 worth of products worth of products (so has it actually cost u anything) & u can prosper as u help people obtain optimum health with their products. However, no one company has everything that everyone needs. So why not join more & more good MLM companies so u can have multiple streams of residual income? Another VERY good MLM company is AMSOIL. They have many Very good products available, their first line was synthetic lubricants & filters. Amsoil is the pioneer & leader in synthetic lubricants. Why not let us sponsor u? Why should you help us? Why not? So visit: http://www.amsoil.com & Give reference #: 52603. We prosper by helping people help themselves & we give to many good charities & suggest u do likewise wisely.