Do Dietary Supplements Work?

The world takes $40 billion of dietary supplements – from vitamin A to yohimbe bark – every year. Yet, the jury is still out on whether most of them work. In America, the FDA isn’t allowed to approve supplements, and no one can say what is in your pills.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you're welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w. Chuck Bryan, there's Jerry
over there. This is Stuff you Should Know the podcast.

(00:22):
Are you I'm good man good, I'm good. Great. Let
me search down in my soul. Yes, I'm doing pretty good.
How about you? Oh? Well, you know I'm tired. Yeah. Everyone,
I'm back in my house after seven months of renovating. Yeah.
And uh, I had a probably a weeklong move easily.

(00:45):
And that's with hiring movers, right, you know, like they
move the furniture, but like movers can't move everything. No,
they really can't. I mean I guess they can. But
what's weird is the smaller and easier the thing is
to move, the less likely the mover is to move it. Maybe,
and I found myself wondering at one point, like how
do rich people move? I was like, they don't move
like this. They just go to a new house and

(01:05):
buy new stuff and leave the old. Maybe because I
thought when I hired a mover, I was like, oh,
I had the big time because I'm not asking friends
to help me. Move. But then I was like, rich
people still don't move like this. They're not packing things
and moving things and pickup truck times. No, No, they're not. Um,
they probably haven't ever even seen a pickup truck in
their life. Someone probably handles all of that. And it's

(01:26):
probably really really really expensive. I think it's less expensive
than you think. You may not have just been shown
the correct pamphlet is there where you have seen like
the next the next echelon up was where they pack
your stuff. I don't know that it's I think it
is definitely, I'm sure more expensive than than what you
paid to not have them do that. Yeah, but I

(01:47):
don't think it's like prohibitively expensive if you're already shelling
out that much money for you know what I mean. Yeah,
So the two things, uh, the two stereotypical movie things
have happened to me, which is towards the end of
the body sing up, when you're first all careful about
labeling and everything, and then at the end just shoving
things into boxes into like a garbage bag pretty much.

(02:09):
And then on the flip side, now that we're in
our house, it's that thing where you know, I have
the worst bo right now because I can't find my deodorant.
Jerry and I can attest to that, and I'm too
tired to go to the five minutes away to buy deodorant.
So I'm just like choosing to stink. Yeah, thank you
sure for making that choice, not just for yourself but

(02:29):
for me and Jerry too. Oh yeah, I'm too old
to be moving, man, I'm no more. Okay, So this
is the last time, huh. I told him, like, I'm
going to die in this house. This is the vow,
just hopefully not soon, or you could shell out for
the one where they actually pack your stuff up. The
rich guy, they just packed me up, send me out
to see the Viking funeral. Okay, that would be pretty cool. Yes,

(02:51):
so obviously what we're talking about today's dietary supplements. Yeah,
might as well, huh. Which, Um, I can't believe we've
never done this one. We have done one called does
the FDA protect Americans, which, after researching this, I'm guessing
we concluded no. Yeah. Maybe I do remember talking about
thelidamite in there, so I think we were like, yes,

(03:11):
in some instances they have protected people that they don't
so much anymore. Um. But I'm surprised we haven't done it,
especially with my dad having been the herbal elvis for
so many years on that now she's the herbal queen. Well,
she's not on anything, but she's she's not buying supplements,
she's growing plants and distilling her own plants. That's really cool. Yeah,

(03:36):
Like we have a big copper whatever it's called still. Yeah, yeah,
you have a still in your house. We have a
still that your wife puts unspecified plants into. Well, you know,
it's it's herb. She's growing them in the yard and
then putting them in the still and then we get
liquid out so so and then you guys are taking
it like the extract, like as a botanical supplement. Yeah. Yeah,

(03:59):
that is fantastic. Yeah it's cool. That is great. So
what kind of like if she she's going to the
trouble of like making sure the dirt that's growing in
is like amazing and all that. Yeah, okay, that's great.
I want a bottle of something. Yeah, I'll get me up, bro,
I'll get you bottle of something. Okay, I don't even
care what it is, all right, I'll take some chick weed.
I'll hold that under my tongue for thirty straight seconds.

(04:22):
So okay, so your hip you understand what a dietary
supplement is well on the herbal side, but I don't know,
Like I've never been good about vitamins and stuff like that.
I'll get on a thing where I'll be like, I'm
gonna start taking a multi vitamin and then you know,
there's six bottles of full multi vitamins familiar. Yeah. Yeah,
I've tried to start taking B twelve and D yeah. Yeah,

(04:46):
and I'm okay about it, but I forget frequently. It's
never like I don't feel like taking that, it's just
I forget. Well, you know what they say, spoiler alert,
They say, just eat good food. You don't have to
take this stuff. Yeah, food first is what that's called.
It's all in the food. So um. Most people chuck.
Do not actually go to the trouble of distilling their

(05:07):
own extracts, their own botanical extracts for dietary. Most people
buy it and then, like you said, forget about it.
But because so many people are buying it, whether they
forget about it or not, it's something like I've seen
anywhere between a four billion dollar industry and a forty
billion dollar industry in the United States and growing like fast. Yes, um,

(05:30):
which is that's a it's a pretty big spread actually,
but um, it's significant that there is a lot of
dietary supplements that are being taken, especially in American There's
this old um adage that Americans have the most expensive
urine in the world because a lot of people say
it doesn't really doing anything. A lot of the pills
that you're taking are just passing through you and it's

(05:51):
harmless because you're not absorbing the stuff. Um or there
may not even be anything in there. You just paid
a bunch of money for some some pills that don't
actually have what they supposedly have in it. And if
you think that, you know, that's hilarious and you laugh
for a little while, and then you stop laughing and
you go, well, wait a minute, why would that be
the case. It turns out the f d A actually

(06:13):
doesn't regulate dietary supplements. The entire four to forty billion
dollar industry basically exists on the honor system. Yeah, And
as it turns out, and we'll get to the specifics later,
there are things and actual plants that help absorb the
good parts of the plant that these supplements do not have,

(06:33):
so in some cases maybe it is just coming out
your pee. So when people think about dietary supplements, the
first thing you think of is vitamins. Yeah, or I
think of like, I have no idea why because I
don't ever have I have never done this. But I
think of like weightlifter guys that like makes shakes and things,
and then like like a pig extract of some sort

(06:55):
of like glant, I think, is it really yeah, And
I have no idea. That's why I um, some bodybuilding
supplements are are glandular extracts, which sometimes you couldn't end
up with like a bacteria or hepatitis or something like
that in your supplements, or a hoof growing out of
your back. And again because there's nobody watching the people

(07:16):
who are making this stuff. So anyway, back to vitamins,
it turns out, remember elect drew execution electrocution vitamins is
short for vital A means did you know that? Is
it really? Swear? And a meen is it's the type

(07:36):
of protein. I believe. What is vital? It means that
you really need it, it's important, and it was coin
it was coin back in nine by a Polish biochemist
named Kasmir Pulaski. I thought you're gonna say portmanteau, Kazmir
Funk what I'm not kidding. So so I'm about to
walk out of here. Get the back of the podcast

(07:56):
out the way. Just April bowls. Vitamin is short. It's
so hot in here. Vitamin is short for vital aimings,
a term that was coined by Polish biochemist Kazmir Funk
back in Alright, well, now Josh is leaving everyone. It's
because my smells glandular smells. Alright, So, uh, I did

(08:18):
not know that. I did not know that was a
portmanteau or is that more an abbreviation? Now it's a portmanteau.
It sounds like, yeah, isn't that a combination of words?
Believe that? I think so too. But people have been
doing this for many, many thousands of years. In fact,
some of the first inscriptions in Sumeria on clay tablet's
talked about herbs. This is nothing new, and that's why

(08:39):
it's very popular now because I think people are saying, hey,
they've been doing it for five thousand years. Humans have
been looking to plants to heal us. Yeah. I mean
there's a lot of people who kind of say, well,
wait a minute, we were using like botanicals, um, vitamins,
minerals long before medicine was a out. I'm kind of

(09:01):
suspicious of the medical establishment getting in between me and vitamins. Yeah,
a lot of people are very suspicious of that. And
I think that's one of the reasons why the subli
dietary supplement industry is boomed is because a lot of
people are. It appeals to the average person the idea
of just taking something natural in your body healing as
a result. It feels good to treat yourself like that,

(09:23):
you know. Yeah, and here in the States, um, what
do you say, You're on d in B twelve. Yeah, Well,
d IS is one of the most after the multi
vitem and the most popular of course, along with sea
and calcium. And then as far as the specialty supplements,
and this is a big one, Omega three fatty acids.
I see, I see those all over the place. Yeah,

(09:45):
like good fatty fish. Of course, this is the extract
of that. They squeeze them, squeeze that salmon out ringing
out of them, and then throw the shame and back
good shot of salmon juice. Uh. What else? Probiotics, um,
fiber of course that counts, you're right, which is kind
of surprised me, I guess, But dietary fiber. It makes sense. Basically,

(10:07):
anything that grows from the ground or that you can
get from animals is technically considered a dietary supplement. Very
necessarily a vitamin. There's vitamins, yeah, but like garlic and
genzing and things like that, they all fall into that banner,
but they are not vitamins themselves. And like garlic and
genzing plants, those would be considered phyto medicines or botanicals.

(10:30):
And then you've got minerals like iron, zinc, stuff like that,
all of them, if you really want to put them
all under a banner, whether it's a dietary supplement or not.
Those are considered micronutrients because you need very small amounts
of them for your body to function, as opposed to
macronutrients like fats, carbohydrates, and proteins pizza, which you needed
a lot of, right Uh. And some of the confusion

(10:52):
comes in with the fact that there are uh many
studies on both sides that say completely kind tradictory things
about very specific vitamins, So, uh, it can be tough
for a consumer just sort of weed through all that
and know what the heck is going on, especially because
of the lack of regulation, which I guess we might

(11:14):
as well go ahead and talk about what happened in Huh. Yeah,
where were you? How was in Athens? Are you there yet?
I was probably hanging out in Athens on my way
up there. I wasn't there quite yet. You're in? Uh?
What was that town between? Yeah? I was in winder Yeah, everybody,
there's a town between Athens and Atlanta called Between. Oh

(11:34):
is it really? Yeah? I didn't know that. Yeah, And
it's called that because it's between Athens and Atlanta. It's
a big claim that in being a speed trap. Um,
don't speed through Between. I've never heard that before, although
half of the town calls it Betwixt. Really don't. I'm
just kidding. Um, Well, you got our cane with that joke,

(11:54):
I know. So in n a big change happen in Uh.
In Congress they passed what's called the Dietary Supplement, Health
an Education Act. And previous to this, there were there
was a lot of tightly controlled regulation by the f
d A and all of that change in UM And

(12:16):
was this because of like just some sort of general
de regulation up with consumers and push It wasn't. No.
What happened was Senator or In Hatch of Utah, which
was home to a lot of supplement producers Hatch and
hence a lot of supplement producing donors. Um Or in
Hatch saw this thing through said no, we need to

(12:37):
open up the supplement regulation or supplement industry in the
best way to do that is to remove regulations on it.
So it was a big de regulation push, but specifically
to the supplement industry because of one Senor. Oh no, no, no,
I get that, but I just meant sort of that
typical like, hey, let's just let people run wild and
make money, right, Yes, yeah, exactly. And it was because

(13:00):
of ore In Hatch got you, and technically Tom Harkin
did too. He's from Iowa and one of his biggest
donors was herbal Life. So the two kind of joined
together and got this historically bad bill pushed through. But
remember this is the converse. Sorry, everybody realizes like nanny
state UM trigger for some people, But this is the

(13:23):
same congress or virtually the same Congress that prohibited the
CDC from studying gun violence. Like this is the kind
of mentality that was going on at the time. Uh.
So what happened during that um uh the passing of
that act as they kind of set up some agreements
which was uh, looser regulation for sure. UM. But if

(13:44):
you make some of these supplements, uh, you cannot make
claims like hey, this will help cure a disease. You
can't make like medical claims like that. You also have
to be very specific with your labeling. UM had to
be labeled a dietary supplement. Uh. And you can make
a claim that, hey, it could have the positive effect
on your body, but you can't say it like cures anything.

(14:07):
And then you also had to tag it with the
statement has not been evaluated by the f d A.
This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or
prevent any disease. Right. So that was that was the
big trade off was that they were but in it
almost sounds like they're saying, well, okay, they can't claim
to be drugs. But there's also some semantic trickery there

(14:27):
because if they're not claiming to be drugs, the FDA
can't regulate them like drugs, right, So basically, Congress, it
is what Congress says it is. It's not a drug,
so it's not a drug as far as as the
United States goes so UM in doing this, they basically said,
f d A, you can't regulate this stuff anymore. Everything

(14:49):
that you've used to UM to get pharmaceuticals that out
to market that have been proven safe and effective, we're
going to do the opposite. These things are pres innocent
until they start hurting people, and then you can intervene.
And then even when they intervene, there there go to UM.
Technique for a a dietary supplement that was proving harmful

(15:14):
was to send a lighter to the producer saying maybe
you should recall this, and the producer could either say sure,
let's do that, or here's the finger. F d A,
you have zero power over me whatsoever. Let me look
at my ledger sheet and see if I want to
shut down my company, right pretty much while I'm on
my yacht. Yeah, and I found a study from UH

(15:37):
I think this past year that found something like seven
hundred and forty six recalled UM or adulterated UM dietary
supplements in the US. Right, So these seven So this
means that they have been found to have anything from UM,

(15:57):
actual prescription drugs in them that aren't on the label UM,
or other things that aren't on the label like fillers, UM,
things that people might be allergic to. Uh, it might
have some sort of chemical in it that's not supposed
to be there, who knows, but they're very little of
what it says it has in there. Right, that's a
different kind of adulterated. These are pharmaceutically adulterated UM. They

(16:21):
they found seven hundred and forty six of them had
been flagged as adulterated, only three hundred and sixty had
been recalled. The other ones were just left on the
market because the company said, no, we're not going to
do that, We're gonna keep selling them. And this this
Journal of the American Medical Association study found even further
that UM, the I think of the three hundred and sixties,

(16:43):
something like ten or eleven percent we're still on the
market even after being recalled. So that's kind of the
state of affairs with dietary supplements, which everybody takes. Should
we take a break, I think we should. I think
we've just lost about a third of our listeners, the
conservative ones. All right, I'll go find my deodorant and
I'll be back right after this. Okay, so we're back,

(17:25):
and I'm totally calm. I still smell, and people are
still selling supplements that are tainted and otherwise misleading regularly.
That's where we are. So. Uh. The FDA, for their
part um, supposedly has established some manufacturing practices, but again
it's I guess just voluntary whether or not you adhere

(17:48):
to these, um. But there are you know, I guess
there's a page somewhere on their website. There are letters
that go out to say, here's what you might want
to do. Yeah, it's like manufacturing good guidelines basically good
practices for manufacturer. Uh. And there are independent organizations that
do test things. Um. A couple of them are one

(18:09):
called Consumer Lab dot com um in s f H
not in SFW be weird, it's like in SF International.
And then one called and this. I mean, I'm sure
this is great, but it just sounds so like something
from a movie U S. Farma Copia, Right, it sounds

(18:31):
like something like a future company from a movie exactly.
That does not do what they say they do. But
those three I mean, like they're they exist because they're
fulfilling the role that the government should. Yeah, or I mean,
I guess if you believe in government oversight, the government
should in a way. The fact that those businesses that
make money off of this exists, it's it's an example

(18:54):
of the invisible hand at work, you know, Like there
was a need that came along, which is people need
to know that what they're buying actually has a stuff
and that it's safe. And these companies that make money
off of it came along and fulfilled this need. That's
what an orange Hatch might say, like, look, not not
only are they booming, but we've created all these other
companies that we do what we used to do. Right.

(19:16):
But from what I understand, uh US Pharmacopeia there, they
have a really good website I believe, where they basically
say this has been um tested, is pure, It has
what it's supposed to have in it, in the amounts
it's supposed to have in it, It doesn't have any

(19:36):
extra stuff in it. You guys can buy this and
they put a label on the bottles, so for sure,
look for that if this is something you're already do
you're interested in trying out? Like, definitely do some research.
This is not the kind of uh hobby you want
to just wait into by walking into a store and
going this sounds great, right. A lot of people do

(19:56):
that though for this stuff. And then bear in mind also,
I don't know about us pharmacopeia, but I know that
Consumer Labs goes to stores and gets their samples that
they test, and they would say, hey, just send us
some stuff, send us your absolutely purest batch for us
to test and give you a sealon. They actually go
to stores and so their their ratings and reviews are

(20:18):
based on tests that they've done independently, right, not the
stuff they sweep off the floor and put in capsules.
You know, that was supposedly what When I worked at
Golden Pantry in college, they had the and you probably
know this as a former smoker, but the really really
really cheap cigarettes. I've heard that before and they always
told us that that's just like literally stuff they sweep

(20:39):
off the factory floor at like Winston Salem or whatever,
Camel or whoever makes the cigarettes. That seems like one
of those urban legends that I think probably true. You know,
what I mean. I think, yeah, like not all urban
legends are wrong. That sounds totally true because it's like,
why are they so cheap? Um basics? Remember those I

(20:59):
don't remember basics, but I sold a lot of bucks.
They had a big they had a big deer on
the front of it, like a big deer buck, and
they were I mean, this is when cigarettes were I
don't know, let's say two dollars, and these were like
seventy five cents a pack or something. Um, how much
our cigarets now? They're super expensive, aren't they. I think

(21:19):
they're anywhere between five and twelve dollars, depending on where
you are, something like I know New York has like,
like they had twelve dollars packs of cigarettes. Five You
can't believe people will pay that much money for a
pack of cigarettes. Um, alright, so that's why we need
government to prevent us from smoking cigarette. Uh So, regardless

(21:41):
of the fact that let's say you find a supplement
it's got the seal of approval, um, you still should like,
do some research, talk to your doctor. It doesn't mean
everyone everyone's body is not the same. You shouldn't just
be downing supplements because you think Oh well, this sounds
like it's good for me. Everybody needs to ferent things. Um,

(22:01):
there is a list here of supplements that are more
likely or most likely to be safe for you and
might be effective. Yeah, based on based on overall science
and research and studies that have been done on these things. Yeah,
so we'll just tick through those. Uh, Calcium, cranberry fish oil,
glucosamine sulfate, which I give my dogs, um black taste, lactobeasilicus.

(22:26):
That's the probiotic, right, Uh, cilium. How do you pronounce that?
Pi gum Gyeah? I think that's right, Pi gum Good
old Sammy, that's uh s adena, sil l methyen. Yeah. St.
John's worth. And then vitamin D, which, by the way,
get this about vitamin D. So if you're a vegan,

(22:48):
very frequently people are like, you should take some extra
dietary supplements. Um, They're like, I take vitamin v The
problem is is not all supplements are vegan, right, especially
vitamin D. The reason vitamin D is very rarely vegan.
This is where most vitamin un Listen specifically says vegan

(23:09):
vitamin D. It is extracted lannelin from lamb's wool. That
is sent What did you think it was gonna be?
Oh no, no, you gotta pay extra for the testicle. UM.
So they extract landelin from Lamb's wool, send it to
China where it's exposed to UV light, to mimic sunlight,

(23:33):
because that's where we get a lot of our vitamin
D is exposure to sunlight and UM. Then it's put
into pills and there you go. So if you're a vegan,
you you wouldn't want to eat an animal product lanneling.
You really have to look out for that kind of thing.
And also one more thing about vegans and vitamins. One
of the big, um, the big controversies that that proved

(23:54):
to some people that you're not supposed to be a
vegan is that we need B twelve quite badly. We
need it for UM, I believe bone health. I can't
quite I can't keep up by seeing so many like
different things that vitamins over the last a couple of days.
But we need B twelve. How about that, um B
twelve is only gained as far as we know, from

(24:15):
animal sources. If so facto we need to eat animals
to get B twelve, and the way animals get B twelve?
Is the gut bacteria in their guts produced B twelve
and then we eat the animals that have the beach
well built up in their their tissues. Right, So that's
how people we meet don't don't have B twelve deficiencies.

(24:35):
But vegans say, where are the animals at cows getting
that B twelve from their bacteria? Where's the bacteria coming from?
They say it's from the soil. So there's this big controversy.
Is the B twelve producing bacteria actually in the soil
and if so, are the factory farming methods like washing
produce that we use actually washing off the B twelve

(24:58):
that you would get in enough of it as a vegan. Yeah,
man's fascinating. Waiting into these waters is so perilous. We've
got to do um a plant based diet episode sometime. Yeah,
you know, uh, who is it? Coach Seattle Seahawks coach
Pete Carroll, one of the older coaches in the NFL,
but one of the more vital old guys. He switched

(25:22):
his diet to completely plant based, like raw foods diet,
I think within the past couple of years. Yeah, he
dropped it on the spot um No, he said. It's
just and you know, he's not the only one person
obviously in the news talking about this stuff. But I
just read something recently where he was just like, you
would not believe the change in my life and body.

(25:44):
And I was like, yeah, I imagine if you just
eat raw vegetables, that would be a great thing for
your body. We'll find out. And I'm not saying that
with a sneer. It's just that would be hard for me.
Uh yeah, you know it's probably something I should do.
I should just eat raw batched for the rest of
my life, you know, Chuck, I don't know that it's
healthy to deal in should uh So there are also

(26:08):
UM some supplements that uh they say should be avoided
because there are links to its side effects. They can
be pretty serious. Yeah, that list you just read like
a half hour ago about UM ones that are probably
okay for you and probably actually are beneficial. They came
up with the opposite list of that too, That's right.

(26:29):
I just well, I mean it was the same like study, Yeah,
that came up with double edged bitter bitter oranges one,
and that one can be especially problematic because from what
I read that that can just sort of ramp up
your sort of like speed in some ways. Yeah, especially
when you mix it with caffeine or speed or like meth. Yeah,

(26:51):
you're like, wow, this meth has given me a real
nutritional deficiency. I should probably start taking vitamins. That's what
most most methadics too. Well. Bitter orange though, something people
do who use to lose weight. Um, And it can
lead to a heart attack and stroke if you take
enough of it. And usually and we'll talk about this more,
but this stuff combining with other things is kind of

(27:12):
where you can get into problems. I saw a lady
one time at a restaurant where I was working, pass
out on the middle of the floor. And it's because
she had just we learned from her friends after the
ambulance came. She had just come off of a week
long like I'm doing nothing but eating uh cayenne pepper
and lemonade. But no, but just like water and vitamins

(27:33):
or something. And then to celebrate the end of the week,
she was like drinking and eating steaks and she just
hit the deck. That's how it's done. That's a real
problem refeeding. Um, We're gonna do an episode once on
this man who who didn't eat for a year, and
we're going to do that. Yeah, and they they were
smart enough to figure out that, like he couldn't just
start eating it just slowly like work food back in.

(27:56):
But you can die from that after a long yeah fast,
if you don't refeed go through the process correctly, you
can just drop dead, like you have a heart attack
basically from eating food. Yeah. This lady was fine, or
I'm assuming she was fine, because as they were wheeling
her out, she did the thing that all pro athletes do.
She just gave the thumbs up. She's all right, everybody,

(28:16):
She's okay. Uh So what else is on their chaparral?
Colloidal silver? That's a big one. Blue. Wh wasn't it
a senator or somebody? Timing guy with a beard? The
blue man? I think there was a congressman or senator
that turned blue. It's like permanent, is it? Yes? I
saw that. It tends to be permanent. Boy. Yeah, once

(28:40):
you turn blue, you don't go back, is the old thing.
Um Colt's foot, which I had never heard of before,
supposedly good for asthma, also linked to liver damage and cancer.
Geranium country mallow that has a Federan in it. Yeah,
city Mellow is great country Mellow no good. Uma, it

(29:03):
was so dumb uh. And what else you know? Himbay,
which is frequently used for erectile dysfunction, but unfortunately it's
an m A O I, which means that if you
drink like orange juice on this thing, you can drop dead.
Um that this list is as obviously it's not comprehensive.
And also I want to just say one more thing
real quick. So I am not attacking supplements. I take

(29:26):
supplements myself, and the idea that of taking something even synthesized,
but that's based on scientific investigation in the nature of
nutrition and all that. I find that endlessly appealing. I
love that and anything that can help you be a
healthier person. I'm in favor of. Um. So I don't
I don't want to give the impression that I'm just
like gleefully shooting holes in the idea of people taking

(29:48):
supplements because I take them less. I don't think that's
coming across that way. Okay, good, you seem like you're
in a good mood. It's all because I gleefully shoot
holes in a lot of stuff. I'm just not doing
this now. Um, So here's the thing too, which this
article points out. These are having a good listen to
bad list is all well and good and it can
be helpful if you don't know what's going on. What's

(30:09):
going on? You know, and you're like, want to you
want to start at like zero and learn a couple
of things. A list like that is good, but it's again, Um,
you have to know your body and talk to your
doctor about stuff and like what other medications are you
taking and what's your end goal? Yes, so you want
a doctor who is not opposed to supplements and who's

(30:29):
knowledgeable with supplements, because any good doctor worth their salt,
especially one that came around post nineties, should be all
about supplements and should know what supplements work, what to
recommend to you to also know what what you're on
and what you can't have, what interacts poorly. Yeah, I
think finding that doctor in the middle ground, though it
can be tough these days, um, because on one end

(30:52):
of the spectrum you have uh what Emily calls the
hokey pokeys, which are like, oh no, no, don't take
any pharma suit cold medicines ever, only take these plant things.
And then at the other end, you have doctors that
are like I believe in science, so only take prescription drugs,
don't mess around with any plant based in because you're
just gonna pay it out. And I find that it's

(31:13):
hard to find someone in between, right. I think. Also,
even if you do find one that is in between
in spirit, they might not have all the information because
you know, you you touched on it earlier. There is
um a lot of conflicting and competing studies like this. Uh,
this article from how Stuff Works says that UM back
in two thousand thirteen, after years of being told that

(31:37):
they should take vitamin D and calcium for bone health,
that postmenopausal women were told stop taking those things. Not
only do they not help you, but the the additional
calcium may lead to everything from a heart attack to
kidney stones because kidney stones are typically made of calcium deposits. Right. Um.

(31:58):
And then another study I think came out that same
miror and said, no, no, keep taking those things. Not
only do they help you, they probably actually don't UM
produce kidney stones. And you know that, like if you
go on to like CNN or NBC or Fox News
or whatever in their websites, they have both articles screaming

(32:19):
both headlines the opposite. Nobody ever goes and follows up right, um,
and everybody's kind of shouts whatever the new studies finding.
So it's really confusing even if you're trying to pay
attention to this. And if you dig into trustworthy sites
like say an FDA site or the National Institutes of
Health site or something like that, there's plenty of links,

(32:39):
but they say a very minimal amount because there's so little,
um substantial science that conclusively says this, this actually helps
or this doesn't help. And that's the thing too, there's
there's nothing, there's very few things that say this does
not help. You are totally wasting your money totally, So

(33:02):
they can't really say one way or the other. It's
all just really middle ground right now. So we actually
need science more than ever to really um study this stuff.
But I mean it is they are studying. If they're
just coming up with different results, somebody just needs to
God needs to come down and be like this and
just point out the Bible. Yeah, vitamin church like playing

(33:27):
the answers are within. Didn't ned say vitamin church and
a healthy does vitamin church? That's great? Uh, One thing
we do know is that and this is across the board.
Everything I researched said this. If you see anything that
says this is totally safe, this has no side effects.
This will give you an erection for sure, This will

(33:47):
make you lose weight, like those are the big or
you know, is it gonna transfer all your weight to
your erection or gentleman like when you know, would you
like to last long younger? Like anything related to sexual
performance and like weight loss is just super hanky. Well,
it's not only that the claims are frequently hinky. A

(34:10):
lot of times the claims are correct, like it like
this this crazy like um botanical for a rectile dysfunction
works really well, but don'dren corns juice. No, it's because
they they use viagra like they're One of the One
of the ways that bodybuilding, weight loss and sexual enhancement

(34:31):
supplements become adult treated is they have actual pharmaceutical drugs
in them that aren't on the label. Some companies have
figured out that the FDA is totally powerless and a
really good way to sell cheap pharmaceuticals generic pharmaceuticals two
Americans is to put it in a supplement, not put
it on the label and go basically around the FDA

(34:52):
by going through these So are these uh sold by
the actual pharmaceutical companies under a sort of like a
sub business title and I think it's largely fly by
night companies. Well, and do they partner with them or
do they just buy a ton of viagraha, now they
know a guy in China who can get pounds of
like cheap generic viagraph or um Prozac is another one

(35:13):
that pops up, especially in weight loss um steroids, um.
Some some drugs that like we're up for FDA approval
as pharmaceuticals and the FDA said not too dangerous. They
turn up in in dietary supplements, and like it's one
thing to waste your money and just pe out expensive urine.
It's an entirely different thing to take prescription drugs unknowingly

(35:37):
and without any sort of medical supervision, because the the
government agency that's supposed to be keeping an eye on
this stuff is expressly forbade from doing that. Yeah, they're
also you need to like when we were talking about
the high FRUC dose corn syrup, the fact that that's
in everything, you don't even know it, and sort of
the same thing here, Like you're the foods you're already

(35:59):
eating maybe good enough if you know, chances are if
you're eating really good like whole foods and things like that,
you're probably not diving headlong into the supplement thing. But
if you're already getting like a ton of vitamin D
in various foods that you don't even realize, and then
you take it on top of that, or god forbid,
if you think I'll just quit taking my medication because

(36:21):
I think this will help, Like, none of that is
a good idea. And then we should probably just talk
about the FEDRA really quick, because that was a very
big deal. Um buying a gas stations, Yeah, and it was.
It was marketed as a weight loss thing, and I'm
sure it probably worked in that capacity. Gives you a

(36:41):
real good buzz it said on the package, didn't really
probably there are probably some it said in like a
bolt of lightning or something. Well, fifteen deaths were attributed
to it by and then I do remember in two
thousand four, uh, the FDA finally banned it. Um And
it wasn't necessarily because of this, but a very high
profile death in Major League Baseball happened. Do you remember

(37:02):
who was Yeah, he was a picture I think is
Steve Steve Beckler, I think, and he died I think
during spring training, if I'm not mistaken. And they linked
it to a feder and they finally were like, maybe
we should step in and do something here because America's
past time is at stake. It would be like if
an apple pie just dropped dead from a feder get

(37:25):
rid of the apples. Oh no, no, sorry, the other
way around. Uh So let's take our second break, Chuck, Yes,
and then we'll come back and talk some more food. Okay, Yeah,
let's do Okay, hey, Chuck, Hi, before so we're back, Yes,

(37:59):
before we talk about food, let's go further back hundreds
of millions of years. Okay. Yeah, it's a big surprise.
So we're not even the wayback machine. We can just teleport. Yes, mentally,
we become intradimensional beings. So, um, we have figured out
that vitamins were around in like the early Earth. I

(38:22):
don't know if we said originally we I think we
said your body needs these things are micronutrients, but your
body needs them for all sorts of things. They help
in like all manner of chemical processes from like um
helping your cells divide to your bones to grow like
really important stuff, which is why we need them. And
your body makes some vitamins, but um, we have to

(38:44):
get them from outside sources. A lot thirteen vitamins are
essential to humans and what we need other animals don't
necessarily need, Like dogs don't need vitamin C because their
bodies produced enough. We our bodies don't produce enough, so
we need vitamin C from other sources. Um. But what
they figured out is that in the ancient Earth, bacteria
and other life made vitamins on their own, and then

(39:07):
over time, as we evolved into higher and higher forms,
we apparently lost a lot of that ability, not all
of it, because we can still make some, but um
to the point where we need to get it from
other sources. So more sophisticated animals started eating more primitive
animals to get that source of vitamin right. And that's
where the whole process began, where we started to evolve

(39:30):
coevolve with other life on Earth, and we our bodies realized, well,
we can get this vitamin from this plant, or we
can get this vitamin from this animal, and that's how
this kind of food web developed was basically for a
reliance on vitamins and other things like fats and proteins
and other nutrients. But this nutrient exchange that that is

(39:52):
when one life started to eat other life. And that's
kind of where vitamins came from. And it wasn't into
the beginning of the twentieth century that we figured out
how to synthesize vitamins. Yeah, that was a game changer.
And like the twenties and thirties, UM, and that thing
you sent about cereal is just mind blowing. Yes. Yes,

(40:13):
So so if you keep going, we we are. The
fact that we synthesized vitamins allowed the process food UM
industry to boom. Yeah, because it's like here, now we
can put things back into food that we synthesized. And
in the case of cereal, like what I was saying,
there are some vitamins that are sprayed on to the

(40:33):
end product. Yeah, so if you see something that says
fortified or enriched, sure that's what that means. That means
that they dump some vitamins into the dough or sprayed
it on the outside of your corn flax or something.
And that just spraying cereal with like give me a
can of vitamin D and just spray it on. Well,
the hypothesis is that without enriched foods, we would all

(40:55):
be dead from like rickets and other sorts of horrible malnourishment, disease,
blind from back of vitamin A, all the things that
can happen to you if you don't get enough vitamins.
What happened to the average American? Because what we eat
because foods right, But the reason it doesn't is because
they put vitamins back in. Some people say, you know,

(41:15):
you might not even need supplements, forget eating whole food,
but they put so many vitamins in processed food that
you could conceivably live, okay, except for the added sugar
and the added salt, you could live vitamin wise. Um, fine, well, sure,

(41:35):
that's a sugar in the salt things a big caveat.
It is a big caveat because that leads to other
problems like cardiac But I see what you're saying, like
you could maybe get all the vitamins you need from
processed foods. Um, But that's not what we're recommending because
we're not doctors. But doctors say, are we to food now?
Like food? Food? Also? Oh yeah, one more thing, I

(41:56):
want to shout out Carl Zimmer, who wrote um vitamins
old old edge, uh in um I think the New
York Times. Yeah, yeah, he did a great job about
the history of vitamins. Is that a friend of yours? No,
he's like a great science writer. Remember our blood type episode?
Sure that was live in Atlanta, right, Yes, it was

(42:17):
based a lot on his article on blood types. Didn't
we take a did we do a blood type test
on stage? Yeah? I turned out to be a positive, right, Jerry,
aren't you a positive? Me and Jerry have the same
blood type. So a one of us get a leg amputated,
the other one has to cough up some blood, I know,
and I'll be right there to manage the whole progress. Um,

(42:39):
But you two would just be arguing the whole time
that someone would bleed out before you settled on an
arranged saying the same thing though, But it just sounds
like an argument, And I would just as as you
both drifted off into the great beyond, I'd say, that's
so you guys, Um all right? That would not be
good though, because then I would have no career and
I had missed my friends. They get second um, so

(43:02):
eating foods that the you know that Mother Earth gives
us to contain these things is clearly the best thing
to do, allegedly. You know, studies have shown that we
absorbed synthetic vitamins better than the stuff and food. Depending
really saw that, But again science is all over the place.
Well yeah, well since you brought that up, and like

(43:23):
I mentioned earlier in the episode, there are a lot
of studies that say that you actually don't absorb those
as well. I guess there are counter studies vitamins, yeah,
that I'm sure they're probably where where does the funding
come from? I don't know, studies, I don't know. It's
a really good question. But phytochemicals, they are plant chemicals

(43:45):
that have properties that can help really help protect you
from disease. Those aren't in the supplements though. The phytochemicals
are what you get when you eat the raw broccoli, right.
I think you can get supplements, very high end supplements
that have phytochemicals and other stuff. And how rich people
suff so, like you know, in the future, they're like,
here's a meal and a pill. What they're kind of

(44:05):
hinting at is a full, fully fortified like pill and
that like in the vitamins we take. Now, if you
take vitamin D, you're getting vitamin D, whereas if you
drink some milk, you're getting a whole bunch of other
stuff along with that vitamin, right, And those things work
together in your body, and so you're giving your body
a shot of all these things that work really well together.

(44:28):
And that's the argument for eating the food. Oh for sure.
UM phytochemicals they think enhance what's called bioavailability. And that's
what we've been talking about, which is how much you're
actually absorbing UM. And I guess just pick a study
because one might say, uh, you pee it right out,
and another might say a supplement and another might say

(44:49):
you don't. That's where it's just it's maddening, you know.
It is one of the things that I think us
pharmacopeia one of the one of the um that those
groups they they test to make sure that the pill
or the vitamin or the supplement actually dissolves in the
stomach so that you actually are you do have a

(45:11):
fighting chance of absorbing the nutrients in there. Or does
it say on the bottle don't pee for three hours
after take just holy just pinch it. Uh. Here's another
study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. It
showed that omega three's and fatty fish like a salmon,
let's say, um, they were better able to maintain proper

(45:33):
blood pressure. People were I'm sorry, mice were then with
that same omega three supplement, the fish oil pill that
you will take. Yeah, uh, and that's you know, that's
a that's a big deal. There's no like substitute, I
don't think for the real thing. Well, they found they
found like on the actual like level of your blood
vessels that the natural, naturally occurring d h A holds

(45:57):
open your blood vessels, whereas the synthetic version doesn't, and
it actually fights the the natural version in your bloodstream too.
So but I mean that's just d h A. You know,
that doesn't necessarily extrapolate to vitamin d R anything like that. Well,
that's why you gotta really like dig in if you

(46:18):
want to start taking supplements, but do your research. But
I think the the idea that there are such things
as phytochemicals that we don't necessarily need to live, like
resveratrol and grapes or lutin in spinach or um like
a like apens, a big one that you find in tomatoes,
things that give it a plant, it's flavor, it's odor,

(46:39):
and its color. Those things those are phytochemicals, and those
are the things that act as antioxidants. They regulate hormones,
they do all the stuff that we don't have to
have to function. But that actually take like that you
go from surviving to thriving. It seems like when you
incorporate phytochemicals in your diet, Yeah, you want a shiny

(47:02):
coat and glowing skin, you don't need that stuff. Um.
Here's another thing, the r d A. Uh. And I
think the r d A it's not just with Recommended
daily Allowance that that doesn't just cover supplements. I mean
that's kind of for calories at all. Yeah, I mean
that's a whole range of things. But um, amazingly that

(47:25):
has not been updated since yeah, which was it was
a different country back then too. There are a lot
more farmers. Yeah, and and it's recommended for um, I
mean they're trying to cover all of America. So it's
not like the r d A for each person. They
liken it to a sweater. In this article that you sent,

(47:45):
it's like trying to create a sweater that would fit
out of a hundred Americans Americans Americans. Yeah, uh, and
that's just not possible. No, I mean they this author
Katherine Price, he wrote Vitamania. She's putting it like ninety
five Americans will find it too large. It'll fit one,

(48:06):
it won't fit you know, four of them, but it'll
it'll fit kind of some. It'll fit over some people,
but it'll be wrong for him. That was their point. Yeah,
And supposedly they're going to update the r d A
from when in a couple of years next year, that's
what I saw. We'll see. I'm interested. I can't sleep.

(48:27):
I'm sure it's behind schedule. I can't wait. Oh. The
other thing to be uh that you gotta wonder about
sometimes is um if like what the long term effective
of something like this might be. You know, it's like
taking taking vitamin D for a year or something is
different than taking vitamin D for forty years throughout your life. Yeah. So,

(48:50):
like there's something called um hyper vitamin osis I believe,
which is basically o ding on vitamins and some vitamins
it's really hard to do. Others it's a little easier.
But this author, Catherine Price, is kind of putting out
this hypothesis that, um, we may be existing in some
kind of sub toxic state where it's we're not it's

(49:13):
not acutely toxic. We're not feigning and vomiting, and like
our liver isn't shutting down, but we're suffering from diseases
we might not otherwise suffer from that we haven't linked
to the fact that we're taking too many vitamins. Yeah,
that's just like this low level sort of poisoning or something.
It's interesting, that's enough, like you could you could survive,
but you might die of something you wouldn't have died

(49:35):
from if you hadn't taken vitamin A that you didn't
need for thirty years, you know. And it's a hypothesis.
It's not proven, but I've seen other people suggested too. Yeah,
and poison control to um, oh, yeah, that's a big one.
That's a huge one. Every twenty four minutes, poison control
centers in the US get a call about a supplement reaction. Um,

(49:55):
it happens a lot. Yeah, there's about twenty three thousand
e er trip from supplements in the US each year. Yeah,
I mean, you think poison control is just like a
swallowed something with a skull and crossbones on the label,
But that's that's really not the case, and especially true
with kids, like you should treat these things like you know,

(50:17):
it sounds harsh to say, like it's poison, but if
you got a toddler in the house, don't leave your
supplements down where they can get them just because it
says all natural. Yeah, yeah, and that's and that's part
of the problem is they have this kind of veneer
of wholesomeness because they are natural and this is stuff
that that's reported to poison control. You supposedly can report

(50:40):
something to the f d A, but how many people
are doing that? You know a lot of people, um,
if they do suffer an adverse reaction, will contact the company,
the manufacturer, and the manufacturer on paper is supposed to
report the incident to the FDA. But again it's it's
on the honor system, right. Or you just go to
the doctor and they say maybe you should lay off
the whatever you're taking, the wacky tobaccy yeah, vitamin church

(51:07):
w um, yeah, maybe layoff that, and then you never
report it. So the long and short of it is is.
I think they said something like never get reported to
the FDA at all. So, I mean, I don't really
know how to wrap this one up because they is
just so so out on so many things. I mean,
for the most part, it does seem like you're going
to do a little more than waste your money on

(51:30):
something you don't need. UM. But I think the movement
today is to say no just before you really start
a supplement regimen, before you go Al Ray curs while
because you know, he takes pills a day a day
every day. He's a futurist, like People's Chief imagineer or
something like that. No, that's a Disney term. He uh,

(51:52):
he takes like two fifty pills a day. Before you
do anything like that. The the kind of the um.
The recommendation du jure is try eating more of a
whole foods diet. Yeah, like go spend all of your
money at whole foods. I think that means that one. Yeah.
I agree, this is a tough one to wrap up,
and I believe we will get equal parts emails saying

(52:16):
from people who swear by it. Uh. It's almost takes
on a religious quality to people that think it's complete
bunk and a couple of people saying like, leave worn
hats alone. Well, since I said leave worn hats alone,
I think that means it's time for listener mail. Uh
it is, and I'm gonna call this uh Josh and

(52:39):
Chucker feminists. Hey, guys, I'm consistently impressed by how clued
up you are on feminism. And by feminism I mean
equality in general, because you always point out times and
which men struggle in society too. From my point of view,
you also regularly look through a race lens, disabled lens,
and gay lens. Although I cannot speak for how well

(52:59):
you are doing there, to me, it seems incredibly inclusive
and sympathetic. Uh, You're welcome. Oh you mean got you?
I think you too? Maybe the only two adult men
I've ever heard speak the way you do. Uh, And
I massively respect you for that is so important to
have influential men speak in these ways. I don't think
that you ever really pushed those arguments down people's throats,

(53:20):
but instead matter of factly stating these issues during an
informative podcast in a man's voice. Let's have an influence
in uh, And it is having an effect somewhere I've
even heard he criticized some second wave feminist ideas and
trump them with third wave feminist ideas. I think it
was in the makeup episode. You guys were discussing feminists

(53:41):
of the seventies shunning women who wear makeup, and Chuck said,
I think they may have got that one wrong. Uh,
And then you two proceeded to have the most progressive
chat ever about how women aren't just wearing makeup for
the purpose of pleasing men. Makes my head explode with excitement. Guys,
to each their own, keep doing what you're doing. That
is from Alice chibnal Kiwi living in Edinburgh. Thanks a lot,

(54:03):
great great city, agreed, great country to New Zealand. Yeah,
I mean she's winning on both fronts. That's where a
lot of the sheep lannel and invite him in d
comes man, I bet New Zealand. Thanks a lot, Alice.
We appreciate that. It was very nice to hear um.
If you want to give us compliments, man send him in.
You can find us all over social media, go to

(54:24):
our website Stuff you Should Know dot com and as always,
you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
I Heeart Radio dot com. Stuff You Should Know is
a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more
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