Dr. Mirkin: A Follow-up to: Eat Real Foods Instead of Popping Pills

Posted May 3, 2008 at 12:00 PM by Alexandra M. Haller

Section: Her Health, Her Nutrition, Diet Myths, Healthy Eating

Dear Dr. Mirkin: Would you please explain how vitamin pills could affect lifespan, as you reported in last week’s issue?

The issue of vitamin supplements is far from settled. Most doctors take multivitamins themselves and recommend them to their patients.  However, I continue to believe that it is better to get vitamins in whole foods than in pills. Most vitamins are parts of enzymes that start chemical reactions in your body.  Each chemical reaction produces end products that are changed by further chemical reactions from other vitamins to other products that benefit your body.  When you take a vitamin that has been isolated from the hundreds of other substances found in foods, that enzyme causes a chemical reaction that accumulates a disproportionate amount of its end products.  If the substance that acts as an enzyme for the next chain of chemical reactions is not available, you can accumulate end products that may be harmful. For example, people who take niacin to lower cholesterol show a marked elevation of homocysteine, a major risk factor for heart attacks.  Homocysteine levels are raised by a deficiency of B12, folic acid and pyridoxine.  When you eat your niacin in whole grains, all of those components are present, along with many others whose functions we may not yet understand. Several of you asked for a link to the study I mentioned last week; it has been added to the issue. Click here.

This post is written by Dr. Gabe Mirkin, M.D. and used with permission.  Dr. Mirkin is board certified in Sports Medicine and has practiced for over 40 years. He has completed more than 40 marathons and was a talk show host of a nationally-syndicated radio program for about 25 years. For more articles by Dr. Mirkin, click here.

Image courtesy of davidszondy.