Multi-Vitamin / Multi-Mineral Supplement (MVM) – Why Not?
Thinking about your health in terms of a dietary road map is probably one of the more effective methods to improve your health. The thought exercise to identify the points of interest along your road can become the building blocks for mindfulness practices. This is a must conversation with your Integrative Nutritionist, and you should expect no less from someone in the field. One of the foundational ingredients of any dietary road map is the inclusion of an MVM. The development of the MVM has a significant role in our modern nutritional health history, yet today, there is still confusion about what a MVM is or its role in our health. Let me take you back in time while I make what I feel are solid points as to the importance of the MVM.
The process of understanding nutrients experienced a defining moment in 1906, with the discovery that the various macronutrients (fats, carbs, proteins) were essential to human development. Sir Fredrick Gowland Hopkins later won a noble prize for this discovery. Then around 1912, Casimir Funk came to the United States and published his paper Vitamins. The first MVM product was brought to market in 1915 after the publication of Casimir Funk’s paper Vitalized Minerals. Hopkins and Funk were leaders in the development of the theory that deficiency of vitamins leads to disease. I have posted this statement on my Home page “Nutrient deficiency leads to toxicity and or death.”
Recruiters were looking for this!
Exploring the term nutrient deficiency and when that focus took such a wrong turn requires us to go back to the early 1940s and examine how we became so confused. Military recruits were coming in for medical exams, and they looked weak. Concerned these young men were not up to the grueling task that war required, the military sparked a national discussion on our nation’s nutritional intake. From that discussion a committee was formed to establish acceptable nutrient standards. We rolled up all the data we accumulated since that first discovery in 1906 and established a national nutrition policy. The process of extracting nutrients from food changed our relationship and understanding of food. The ways food impacts our health led us to this national policy, but the road since that time has been bumpy.
Nutrition history in the United States is a fascinating topic, with much data for nutrition policymakers to digest. If nutrition policymakers spent time understanding the past, we would have better nutrition and health policies today. In the immortal words of writer Terry Pratchett “It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.”
How did we get it so wrong? The effort to establish original nutrient levels morphed into a committee called the Food and Nutrition Board, and it remains one of the most exclusive groups in government today. This group functions under the umbrella of the National Academies of Medicine. This group is private, and a nonprofit, non-governmental institution that provides objective advice on matters of science, technology, and health. It is funded by public tax dollars and overwhelming supported by food corporations, that lack objectivity. At inception, this group decided their focus was to be on eliminating beriberi, pellagra, rickets and scurvy. This goal was indeed successful. But there were others like Linus Pauling and Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi (both award winning scientist of their time) who thought the focus should be broader. These men wanted the group to consider adopting a whole-body sufficiency objective for optimal health and wellness. The committee ignored their outreach. Now with all the chronic diseases in our population, not adopting a whole-body sufficiency focus was a monumental mistake. The other unfortunate outcome for not using whole-body needs is the fact the criteria are shared and adopted by other countries who look to the United States for health guidance.
The original nutrient levels established by the Food and Nutrition were called the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDA). Today the list has expanded to 28 nutrients, 29 if you count iron and this current list is called the DRI or Daily Recommended Intakes.
When it comes to a MVM product, there is amazing confusion as to what it is and what it is used for. The narrow vision of the Food and Nutrition Board stymied that discussion. Clarity could only come out of a whole-body sufficiency approach. We cannot alter this committee’s vision, but we can take the time to understand how to look at a MVM scientifically and make more fully informed decisions.
We should look at the MVM as a humble creature whose mission is to supply our bodies with the nutrients needed to assist us through the day. We should not look at a MVM as Super, Ultra or even Mega as being superior. In fact, we should even ignore those little candy style formats. Look for a supplement with published research supporting the ingredients. Is there a zinc to copper ratio that is close to 1:1. What about a balance of vitamin A to beta carotene? The ideal supplement can contain a greater proportion of beta carotene. Biotin and Folic acid should be present in significant amounts. If not, ignore the product. The multi should included all of the B vitamins with no artificial colors, chemicals, preservatives or sweeteners. If your MVM is complete and has all 28 or 29 Daily Recommended Intakes, then the calcium can be 30% -35% of Daily Value. If lower than this range what is the manufacturer including that should not be there like herbs or amino acids? Herbs and amino acids on an MVM are too big and too few to benefit a person in any manner.
A fairly large unresolved dispute of MVM constituents is the use of natural versus synthetic raw materials. Artificial compounds are not well absorbed by the body.
I had an invaluable experience around the time I was taking an organic chemistry class. I worked in a secure biotech lab and was able to have interesting conversations with the chemists. These chemists helped me adapt my studies to real life examples. Their assistance was invaluable. I polled several of the chemists for their opinion on natural versus synthetic vitamins. The results were interesting. The over 50 years-of-age believed that both natural and synthetic were interchangeable. Those under 50 years-of-age acknowledged the chemical formula was the same and under a microscope you could not tell them apart. The younger ones all said the two forms have different rotations in the body. Natural substances have a left-hand rotation in the body and are considered the active form. The synthetic forms have a right-handed rotation. The active forms find and fit the receptors better than the synthetic forms.
I believe these chasms of opinion of understanding have stifled any unified support of the MVM for decades. But what are traditional allopathic sources now saying about MVM supplementation? In 2002, a few decades late but welcomed by the Health and Wellness community, the Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital Harvard Medical School along with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center conducted a study on the MVM. These sources concluded that taking a MVM was effective at reducing chronic disease. The push back from anti-nutrient forces in the established nutrition world were significant and enduring. I was attending a program planning class ten years later when the topic came up, and several fellow classmates shrugged off the findings by saying that these institutions took it back. Well folks when all of the above institutions band together and publish a finding they never say “oops”. The MVM and its contribution to our health is here to stay.
There is tremendous bias in western medicine, and it starts in undergraduate college classes. I was taking an Epidemiology class around 2015, and during an exam we reviewed a study published by the Brigham and Women’s Hospital here in Boston. The focus of the study was a non-pharmaceutical treatment for cardiovascular health. They used a high-grade synthetic substance and in fact, their results were far less optimal than others who had conducted the same study with other types of products. My test question asked since such dismal results were reported would I use a supplement to treat cardiovascular issues? At first, I thought this was a trick questions then I wrote in big letters, Absolutely, I would improve the product and use a real, natural, non-synthetic organic supplement. I had an opportunity to speak with one of the instructors after, and she agreed with me that the paper was old, and that methods and protocols have changed. I sat there and wondered why on earth we need to spend any time on this paper. Bias is hard to shake off.
On the matter of bias, do you remember that first MVM that hit the market in 1915? Well that product went on to launch a national company in 1950 and has well over 60 years of research and development in its formulation. That company also performed another first and that was to turn over their customer and product data to an outsider for examination. Supplement companies just do not do this. They turned it over to Dr. Gladys Block of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Dr. Block examined the customers who use an MVM along with other supplements, and compared them to just MVM users, and non-supplement users from the NHANES database. The multi-supplement users fared better against chronic disease markers than the MVM and non-users from the NHANES database. The MVM users from NHANES/multiple companies faired better in many categories than the non-users. This makes sense to me because we need different nutrients for different experiences in our lives. Taking multi-supplements allows you to have those nutrients ready when the body has demands. This is a foundational step in building good health.
You can click on the supplement button to read all about the oldest MVM product in the United States along with the results from the Landmark study published by Dr. Gladys Block.
Take care and I look forward to hearing from you.