A series by Bradley T. Wajda, D.O.
Having spent the last 27 of my 40 years in medicine as an integrative physician, I have seen a plethora of “fake news” surrounding supplements- long before “fake news” became a household term. In the first four years of medical training, there is truly little more than one hour spent on diet and nutrition. This means that the physician- traditionally envisioned as the navigator of your journey toward maintaining good health- leaves you to find your own way.
Most people do inherently seek ways to enhance their health. The Council for Responsible Nutrition does a yearly survey that consistently reveals approximately 68% of Americans take dietary supplements. It is unsettling to think of how a majority of these people choose their supplement regimen.
This is the motivation behind the creation of this series. We do not need to look at obscure sources, but instead can look at past and contemporary thought-leaders emphasizing the importance of supplementation. Thomas Edison predicted, “The doctor of the future will give no medication, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
The T.H. Chann School of Public Health at Harvard University states, “a daily multivitamin is a great nutrition insurance policy”. Interestingly, a notation from their web page refers to “major flaws” in a study leveraged to argue against multivitamins. This provides a great place to begin our next installment in this series- by looking at the studies. We will look at studies that should be touted in the mainstream media, and other studies that highlight how statistics can be manipulated.
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