Dr. Fuhrman Discusses Vitamins and Supplements

Dr. Fuhrman Discusses Vitamins and Supplements

In his books and in his practice, Joel Fuhrman, M.D. advocates eating foods that deliver optimal health. Yet he also recommends taking certain vitamins and supplements, like his Gentle Care Formula multiple. Here he discusses that recommendation.

Why Take Vitamins and Supplements?
Since most people's diets are not ideal and individual absorption and utilization varies from person to person, it makes sense to recommend that all people take a high-quality multiple to assure most favorable vitamin D, B12, zinc, iodine, and selenium status, to name a few. 

Even if your diet is ideal, some people require more of certain nutrients than others. For example, it is not uncommon for some people to need extra vitamin D, or extra B12, even when their diets contain typical amounts of these vitamins. This is especially true regarding vitamin D because of the depletion of the atmosphere's ozone layer and subsequent increase in skin damage from the sun. Because of this, many people practice sun avoidance and wear sunscreen, which decreases their vitamin D production.

I also took into consideration my recommendation to avoid all salt added to food. Salt is iodinated, making it the primary source of iodine in most people's diets. Therefore, a multiple will assure adequate iodine intake in those who avoid adding salt to their diet.

Are there any problems with taking supplements?
The main problem with taking a typical multivitamin is that it may expose you to extra nutrients that you do not need. Sometimes too much of certain nutrients can have toxic or harmful effects. For example, I do not recommend taking supplements that contain vitamin A, isolated beta-carotene, or iron, because there are risks associated with consumption of these nutrients above what we receive in our diet.

Ingesting vitamin A or beta-carotene in isolation--from supplements, instead of from food--may interfere with the absorption of other crucially important carotenoids, such as lutein and lycopene, thus potentially increasing cancer risk. 1

The precursor to vitamin A, beta-carotene once was regarded as a safe and beneficial antioxidant and even recommended as an anti-cancer vitamin, but it has recently been shown to increase the risk of certain cancers when administered as an isolated supplement. Scientists now suspect that problems may result when beta-carotene is ingested without other carotenoids that would have been present had it been ingested from real food. Beta-carotene is only one of about 500 carotenoids that exist. Beta-carotene supplements are poor substitutes for the broad assortment of carotenoid compounds found in plants.

Why did researchers think that beta-carotene had such a powerful anti-cancer effect?
They had found that populations with high levels of beta-carotene in their bloodstream had exceedingly low rates of cancer. Recently, it was discovered that the reason these people were protected against cancer was because of hundreds of carotenoids and phytochemicals in the fruits and vegetables they were consuming. It wasn't that beta-carotene alone was responsible for the benefit; it was merely that it had served as a flag or marker for those populations with a high fruit and vegetable intake. Unfortunately, many scientists confused the flag for the ship. Read more