"Safe upper limits" for nutritional supplements: one giant step backward - Editorials

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Oct, 2003 by Alan R. Gaby

Conclusion

These and other examples from the report demonstrate that the EVM applied its methodology in an arbitrary and inconsistent manner, in arriving at "safety" recommendations that are excessively and inappropriately restrictive. While the directive to evaluate only the risks, and to ignore the benefits, of nutritional supplements created a rigged game, the members of the EVM appeared to be willing participants in that game.

If the EVM report is used to relegate currently available nutritional supplements to prescription-only status, then millions of people would be harmed, and very few would benefit. It would be of little consolation that the higher doses of vitamins and minerals could still be obtained with a doctor's prescription, because most doctors know less about nutrition than many of their patients do. Moreover, the overburdened health-care system is in no position to take on the job of gatekeeper of the vitamin cabinet; nor is there any need for it to do so.

Ironically, as flawed as the EVM report is, its recommendations may ultimately prove to be "as good as it gets" in Europe. Other European countries are recommending that maximum permitted levels be directly linked to multiples of the RDA, which could result in limits for some nutrients being set substantially lower than those suggested in the EVM report.

While some nutritional supplements can cause adverse effects in certain clinical situations or at certain doses, appropriate warning labels on vitamin and mineral products would provide ample protection against most of those risks.

Note: Reprinted with permission from the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine (in press), as part of a special issue devoted to clearing up the confusion about the toxicity of vitamins.

References

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