Supplements: Time to change the nay-saying record?

27-Apr-2009 - Stephen Daniells

As yet another TV show concludes that supplements are unnecessary, is the ignorance of the mainstream media few putting the health of the many at risk? Isn’t it time to change the record?

Professor Regan’s Diet Clinic, a TV programme broadcast recently as part of BBC2’s acclaimed Horizon series, came to the conclusion that supplements are totally unnecessary for people eating a balanced diet.

Academics interviewed in the programme supported this view, and went so far as to point out the dangers of certain vitamins when taken in large doses.

Take-home message for the viewers: Stay away from supplements - you don’t need them and they may even be dangerous.

I, however, took a different message away: Why is there a continued lack of understanding of what supplements actually do? I don’t want to sound patronising, but the clue is in the name - they ‘supplement’ diets. They bridge nutritional gaps; they are not meal replacements, nor are they a cure all.

Professor Regan’s message may have been made with all the best intentions - a balanced diet is the ideal way of meeting nutritional needs, but the issue is not ‘how things should be’ but ‘how things actually are’.

How many people do eat a balanced diet? I would argue very few. Hence the need for supplements.

(Read article here)

IMPORTANT NOTE! Continue to read the READER COMMENTS to the article at the end of the article.

Here is an excerpt:

"Being a health writer with close to 20 years of experience from the Scandinavian "supplement scene", I have heard this rather uninspiring and, in my opinion, misleading message over and over again and find it difficult to understand why the media always seem to fall for it.