The Mineral-Depleted Food Scandal
Thursday, April 20, 2006
The news (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) has been full of reports about how our food in Britain is becoming less nutritious and that it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain a full set of minerals and vitamins through the food we buy in supermarkets. I have been told by several people that this is the reason why it is so important to take supplements. Can this be true? If so then it is truly shocking! We can no longer feed ourselves! What is going on here?I've always thought that the best way to get your minerals and vitamins was to eat a varied and balanced diet, rather than take dietary supplements. I further believe that the major source of information about the need to take supplements comes only from the big business interests behind the 'health fraud' industry.
So I did some digging. The common source behind these allegations of Mineral Depleted Food appears to be a report issued by the Food Commission. Let's take a look at this.
First, the Food Commission is a consumer lobby group involved in doing consumer surveys and publishing 'thought leadership'. It does not in itself publish peer-reviewed research. Like all such groups, it has an agenda, and one that I probably broadly agree with. Nonetheless, given this, one should always be cautious in examining its claims.
The report in itself suggests that several foods (meat and dairy) have lower levels of minerals than the same foods had in the 1920s. There are several problems with this analysis:
- If this is indeed true, there is nothing in this report to suggest that the levels have fallen to dangerous levels. Is it still likely that a varied and balanced diet will supply most peoples' needs? The report declines to comment.
- There have been several criticisms of the methodology of this research (comparing government tables, the best part of a century apart). Analytical methods have changes enormously over this time and there is no correction for biases that will have been introduced as a result. (Remember the famous iron-in-spinach myth?)
- The report goes on to show that 8% of women might be mineral deficient but (this is the important bit) the report does not say that this is a result of the (alleged) lower mineral levels in food. This could be down to these women just having very poor diets. This is to be expected, as we know some people do not eat well and there is no attempt to correct for this. This is either a little disingenuous or just plain not rigorous enough. The report allows the connection to be made in the readers mind - but does not state the connection itself.
It would appear to be case closed, but the story gets a lot better.
Why did the Food Commission publish this report? Who did the original research?
It is stated that the research was done by a Dr David Thomas. Now Dr Thomas was originally a geologist (alarm bells) and has "retrained as a chiropractor and nutritionist" (very loud sirens). Dr Thomas does not work at any academic institution doing research, as you might have thought given the seriousness of this report, but rather has been running a company that sells (drum roll) mineral supplements.
http://www.mineralresourcesint.co.uk/about.html (have a look what the quackometer has to say about this site.)
So, could it be that this report was originally just a piece of puff marketing released by a company that would directly profit from people believing it? I don't know. If it is just marketing then it is a scandal. Obviously many people are worried about their health enough to invest lots of money in unnecessary supplements.
Personally, I think the next time you are tempted to blow twenty quid in a health food shop on unnecessary supplements, you should keep on walking down the high street until you find an Oxfam or Save the Children collector and pop that twenty quid in their collection tin. The added nutritional value that the money will provide to struggling farmers in truly undernourished parts of the world will greatly outweigh any marginal benefit those pills will bring you  IF you eat a varied, balanced diet.
Labels: diets, minerals, nutritionist, vitamins
posted by Le Canard Noir at
5:49 PM
10 Comments:
Great post LCN! - I didn't realise you'd started your own blog - keep up the good work buddy!
Deano
At first it's ho-hum, yet another story on bogus research (pseudoscience being beyond epidemic proportions these days). Then the punch line hits - a supplement selling chiropractor came up with it. Made me laugh.
Nice work.
I find your attack on mineral/food supplements very disturbing. I have mitochondrial failure and my G.P cannot prescribe me the coenzymes or minerals that I require to keep me functioning on a daily basis.Hence I have to take supplements - as they provide the coenzymes in the right concentrations, which I cannot metabolize in sufficient quantity from the food that I eat. What would you suggest I do otherwise?
Fantastic! The last paragraph is inspired ;-)
I wasn't to impressed by the Food Commission picking on Chris Hoy as one of the bad guys pushing junk food because he was promoting "high sugar" Kellogs branflakes. Now if I'm to believe Kellogs and that the average portion is 30gm, then that's about 7gm of sugar (versus the 24 gm of sugars you'd find in a typical 200ml glass of orange juice). Even if 30gm is a bit small, then it's hardly going to kill you unless you try and live on a diet made up largely of dry bran flakes. Tape a carton of UHT semi-skimmed milk to the cereal carton in the appropriate portions and the resultant meal drops from the FSA red sugar into the green category, even with the added lactose.
Of course this all comes about as the FSA insist on red-flagging foods solely on the basis of the percentage of a given substance rather than the amount you consume in reasonable portions (they do put the absolute amount per portion on their coloured wheel-of-death, but next to the traffic light colour there's not much clue as to whether the total amount is significant).
Of course the GDA system (which I greatly prefer) has its problems too, but that's largely because there is simply no way that a few square centimetres of packet space can convey the complex issues of a healthy diet. Simpistic colour coding is no substitute for people being aware of how to plan a reasonably healthy diet (it's a truism that there are no unhealthy foods, just unhealthy diets).
It's also not helped by all the spurious certainty claimed by a lot of the food lobby. The oft quoted stuff about the portions of fruit/vegetable, the units of alcohol and the like are subject to a huge range of uncertainties and variations in individuals.
The Food Commission also appears to invite other groups with agendas to publish articles on their subscription magazine. As an example, authors from the Soil Association who have a habit of mixing up some sensible ideas with a lot of unsupported, messianic stuff more in common with a faith organisation.
From the little I can read on the Food Commission site, then I think this is just yet another self-serving pressure organisation that doesn't care too much for rigour and the essential uncertainties and has a liking for headlines to capture public interest. After all, they, like anybody else have a living to make and they appear to be funded from subscriptions to their magazine.
SnapDragon6:
I find your misinterpretation of the points made, and your overreaction very disturbing.
It seems to me that at no point is this post saying that vitamin and mineral supplements aren't necessary, for some people - yourself being a perfect example - who have deficiencies and health problems caused by them. It is saying that the impartiality of this report should certainly be questioned, especially given the conflict of interest, which we can assume was not stated. And seeing as there are scant details of what research was done, and what steps were made to take into account the failings that LCN pointed out. Those being;
1) declining to mention whether a well balanced diet could supply peoples needed nutrients (if indeed the nutrient levels of the food stuffs has dropped). Therefore resorting to supplements may not be necessary.
2) not taking into account changes in sensitivity and accuracy of analytical chemistry between the two periods that measurements were taken. Therefore the nutrient value may not have dropped at all, or may have have dropped only an insignificant amount.
3) failing to show that any of the 8% of mineral deficient women were made up of those being so due to an alleged reduction in the nutrient value of the food stuffs. Therefore any drop in the nutrient value of food may have little bearing on the health problems of todays population.
Ultimately it is misleading as the vast majority of people would benefit far more, both in the health and their wallets, by consuming a well balanced diet, instead of buying largely unnecessary (as shown by a large number of high quality studies) supplements.
@SnapDragon6: I don't think anyone is suggesting that people be discouraged from taking supplements where there are medical reasons for them. But the vast majority of healthy people, who have a reasonably balanced & varied diet, do not need them.
I love food, especially when it tastes good and I eat it whenever i can.
But heaven only knows whether my diet is balanced.
Frankly I don't want to be bothered to work it out.
BECAUSE..........
For only £1 (not your neo-puritanical, science-nurd-rabble-rousing £20 mate) I can buy 1 months worth of Sainsbury's multi-vitamin tablets.
One of those a day and I've got all the vits I need.
All day. Every day. Sorted.
What can possibly be wrong with that?
Anonymous - the 'multivit' as an insurance may cause harm if it gives you a false sense of achieving a balanced diet and therefore, you no longer concentrate so much on healthy eating. There is no shortcut here.
Healthy eating is not hard. The vitamin sellers try to make it look hard to you so that you take a 'fallback'.
In contrast, many recent large studies have been showing that taking vitamins actually does not achieve the health effects you would expect and indeed may even do you direct harm, e.g.
Vitamins E and C were ineffective in preventing `cardiovascular disease in men. Sesso HD, Buring JE, Christen WG et al. JAMA, 2008;300 (Physicians’ Health Study II, mong 14,641 male physicians. […] The study participants were randomized to receive 400 IU of vitamin E every other day or a placebo and 500 mg of vitamin C daily or a placebo.
B Vitamins (B12, B6, folate) May Not Reduce Cardiovascular Events For Coronary Artery Disease Patients Ebbing M, et al, JAMA 2008, Aug 20 — In a large clinical trial involving patients with coronary artery disease, use of B vitamins B6, B12, folate was not effective for preventing death or cardiovascular events. Patients were randomly assigned to one of four groups receiving a daily oral dose of one of the following treatments: folic acid, 0.8mg, plus vitamin B12 , 0.4mg, plus vitamin B6 , 40mg (n= 772); folic acid plus vitamin B12 (n = 772); vitamin B6 alone (n = 772); or placebo (n = 780).The study was stopped early because of concerns among the participants about preliminary results from another similar Norwegian study suggesting no benefits from the treatment and an increased risk of cancer from the B vitamins. Daily supplementation combination that included folic acid and vitamin B6 and B12 had no significant effect on the overall risk of cancer, including breast cancer, among women at high risk of cardiovascular disease. Zhang M et al, JAMA 2008 Nov. 5.
Certain Vitamin Supplements May Increase Lung Cancer Risk, Especially In Smokers. November 11, 2008, from American Thoracic Society. March of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
Selenium and vitamin E supplements, taken either alone or together, did not prevent prostate cancer; these results came from initial, independent review of study data from the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), funded by the National Cancer Institute. (publication Feb. 1 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.)http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=285
All the studies quoted above investigate whether high doses of vitamins can cure or prevent diseases.
They indicate that high doses of vitamins do not prevent or cure the diseases studied.
Maybe they are harmful.
But these studies tell us absolutely nothing about whether a daily multivitamin will help maintain good health.
And lets face it, that's not a question which will ever be addressed by a double blind study. (Difficulty selecting endpoints, no-one will fund, etc)
So any opinion on the matter must rather be obtained through logic.
Just ask yourself one question.
How long did Barbara Cartland live?
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