36 replies to this topic

[nowayout]

I would say the pro-supplement propaganda in the media far outweighs the anti-supplement propaganda. Vitamin D in large doses is being sold to us as the cure for everything and anything under the sun.

It was only in the last couple of years that a large US metastudy and a more recently large EU metastudy came out debunking the case for megadosing vitamin D. These metastudies received comparatively little attention in the press. If you think the US capitalists are behind the first metastudy and conspiring to kill off baby boomers, you have to wonder why those commie socialist Europeans would independently come up with the same conclusion regarding vitamin D being oversold.

I fully agree that the statin recommendations are crazy. Not to mention the overselling of antidepressants and lots of other pharmaceuticals. But that does not mean that supplements aren't also oversold. Both the pharmaceutical and the supplement industries run on maximizing profits, and the supplement industry is a huge moneymaker for a lot of capitalist barons as well. (They just love playing the victim, though - speaking of conspiracies, one wonders if the OP is himself being paid by the supplement industry.)

[sthira]

You see, the RDA is not set in stone. There may well be beneficial effects for micronutrients above the current RDA. The LPI's website provide sources for the gives examples and often scientifically more up-to-date recommendations than the RDA.

Thank you, Timar, for the link and suggestions.  I'll keep a more open mind to taking selected, targeted supplements.  It's difficult to know how to eat in the best ways possible, and to an extent I think we're all our own n=1 science experiments.

[...]Once you've experienced an attack from an obvious professional they become easier to spot.  With the drumbeat of anti-supplement propaganda going on, it strikes me the real war may be going on in the comments section following the stories.  Those with legitimate/knowledgeable opposing viewpoints are being bullied into silence by professional shills who can write rings around all but the most experienced writer/debaters.  
[...]

I think you're accurate here, and as you point out, paid writers representing many organizations (pro- and anti-supplement companies, eg) frequent many fora.  A read through the NY Times comments section on any topic is insightful.  I stopped bothering with Amazon and iherb comments sections, for example.  Who knows who's honest?  Maybe it's best to just trust your own blood tests, eat the healthiest diet you're able to maintain, and check in with cronometer every now and then?  

[niner]

My curiosity on Anti-Supplement Propaganda was actually sparked by a debate I had regarding mandatory flu shots for healthcare workers on a response forum in a major media website's news story on flu vaccines. I had posted a concern over how adjuvants used to ramp-up the immune system (to adequately recognize a dead virus) might affect autoimmune related inflammation and disease.

All of a sudden, up popped someone who aggressively pursued me on a number of points... His responses were polite, rather long, detailed and came very rapidly, demanding I respond to numerous points he had made. Punctuation, grammar, spelling and sentence/paragraph structure were flawless, and he seamlessly blended references from my posts into his cut and paste responses. He was obviously an experienced technical writer on a carefully prepared mission. I clicked on his profile and though it was recently created, it was quite complete, photo and all. He didn't claim to be a doctor, but a PhD student who had "significant research experience" in this area.

I went back and forth with him for a bit and finally went to bed. When I woke up the next morning and revisited the page, it turns out he had been at it all night with other posters... A graveyard shift! He had ignored the more ignorant/inexperienced posters, but was hot on the heels of anyone who sounded like they had some knowledgeable opposing input. I had quoted two very valid reviews from the Cochrane Collaboration backing up my points which were mysteriously "flagged" and vanished from the comments which really blew me away. I had never experienced anything like this before in my entire life in cyberspace.

But this case isn't about supplements, it's about vaccines. In order to accept that this is part of a conspiracy, you'd have to believe that vaccines themselves are a conspiracy (to kill off boomers?). The guy you were dealing with sounds to me like a grad student or post doc with time on their hands. There are a lot of scientists who have dedicated their lives to improving human health, and many of them are profoundly annoyed with the Jenny McCarthy-antivax crowd. This is probably just a case of a person who felt that they were doing the right thing by countering antivaxers. In your case, it's possible that they went too far- I don't know. Getting those Cochrane reviews flagged sounds wrong, and is kind of surprising. I don't know what to make of that. Anti-anti-vax zealotry gone overboard? Error? Flagged for some other reason?

The fact remains that being pro-vaccine is an entirely different thing than being anti-supplement, and doesn't make sense as part of a conspiracy.

[Guardian4981]

The problem I see with the supplement industry is they capitalize on Americans age old socialized belief of more is better. That may be true with water tank size but not with supplements. Too many supplements if not most are overdosed. One way around this is to take a dose once every few days, but even this method is likely not all that good since the body likely works better with a consistent but low dose.

[Luminosity]

We've had drug company shills here trying to cast doubt on certain things. Here they tend to attack certain wholistic MD's, irrationally and persistently. They may also go after certain supplements. They were after Gingko, I guess because it threatens their harmful and worthless Alzheimers remedies. Here we don't seem to get anyone impressive. Many of them had few prior posts. They were persistent without any real arguments on their side. They would just mindlessly repeat that that thing was unscientific.

We've also had what may be government shills attacking posts on UFO's and other things. Pretty much the same dynamic. They can't afford to cover the whole internet with grade A shills. We even seemed to have had one from Eastern Europe, and some seemed like high school students, so they are outsourcing and using the same population you would use for babysitting.
A lot of the time after that argument is over, they don't stick around. They probably just came on because of a Google alert.

Edited by Luminosity, 16 January 2014 - 06:33 AM.

[timar]

You almost got me with the pharma shills but then...

We've also had what may be government shills attacking posts on UFO's and other things.

That's so utterly ridiculous that it pretty much voids everything you wrote in that post.

Never mind, maybe I'm just one of them .

Edited by timar, 16 January 2014 - 07:54 AM.

[nupi]

Never mind, maybe I'm just one of them .

Welcome to the club.

Of course, if you try to reason with conspiracy theorists that just means you are part of the conspiracy

Edited by nupi, 16 January 2014 - 10:17 AM.