Micronutrient supplements, often useless, sometimes necessary.
If you are health-conscious, you may be one of the large number of people who take a micronutrient pill with their morning coffee or tea. In the USA, some 77% of adults do, powering a 125 billion dollar market (2018) . No statistical data are available for Switzerland, but a quick look with any search engine will reveal a flourishing business. By the way, a few days’ training is all it takes to become a “micronutritionnist”.
Micronutrient supplements have an appealing logic: if this substance has anti-inflammatory properties (for example), then if I take some it will reduce my inflammation. How logical it looks – and how untrue it is. Alas for the consumer, there is no proof that those little pills of vitamins, minerals or other micronutrients do anything useful for a healthy person. Simply put, micronutrient supplements are often useless.
As an example, let’s look at curcuma, or rather curcumin, much prescribed by micronutritionists. Curcumin has antioxidant properties at cell level, and for that reason, it is sold to combat inflammation, aging and even cancer. Webshops offer a pot containing 60 pills for 40.- CHF, which comes to a little over 65 centimes for a pill with 30 mg of curcumin, give or take a bit. The “bit” doesn’t matter, since most scientists who have tested curcumin on real humans (not mice) have asked their subjects to take 1 to 2 g of curcumin per day. That is 33 to 66 of those little capsules you buy. But don’t worry, you really don’t need to spend those 21.- to 43.- CHF per day. First, because a recent meta-analysis has shown that curcumin has no positive impact on inflammation. Second, because an effect in healthy people is highly improbable. In fact, one the most influential investigators in this field recently resigned after failing to prove the integrity of this studies (a large number of his papers have been retracted from the scientific publications in which they had first appeared).
Micronutrient supplements are often useless, but sometimes necessary. For example, if you systematically banish certain foods from your diet, you run a greater risk of not getting enough of certain nutrients. If you have eliminated a whole group of foods, whatever your reasons are (personal belief, digestive intolerance, or simply taste), you should see a professional to prevent long-term deficiencies. Also if you eat very very little. Also if your needs are higher because of intensive athletic activity, or pregnancy, or malabsorption. If that is your case, I recommend that you ask a qualified professional to check your nutrient intake, and perhaps get your doctor to do a blood analysis. The question, then, is whether a supplement is necessary, or whether you can realistically cover your needs with foods that are acceptable to you. And do you really need me to tell you that if you want an honest opinion, you should steer clear of the people who sell micronutrient supplements?
Sometimes useless, sometimes necessary, in the worst case micronutrient supplements can be harmful. For example, a side effect of excessive iron intake is a reduced absorption of zinc, an essential micronutrient for the immune system. The best intentions may have harmful results.
Generally speaking, be cautious. Taking a micronutrient supplement is not trivial, and the claims on some such products are exaggerated, not to say false. I will come back to this in a later post on Spirulina, where I will tell you about the Bachelor thesis of two brilliant students of mine, Christelle Ducrest and Elodie Bapst.