I'm a skeptic (怀疑论者) when it comes to the benefits of taking vitamins and other supplements. We swallow far more than any other country- yet we're not the healthiest folks by far, nor do we live the longest. There's more bad news for vitamins this week: Turns out that taking folic acid (叶酸) and vitamin B12 supplements doesn't prevent heart attacks or death, according to a major new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It was hoped they would, since the vitamins do reduce levels of homocysteine (高半胱氨酸), an amino acid (氨基酸) that is higher in the blood of people who have a higher risk of heart disease. In fact, homocysteine was reduced 30 percent after one year of treatment in the participants who took both vitamins. But in the following three years, just as many vitamin takers died as those who didn't take the vitamins. Even worse, the study was stopped early because another similar study suggested that there may be an increased risk of cancer from taking B vitamins. I had been taking a health-food store monster multivitamin (综合维生素剂) for months. Coincidentally, I had been experiencing some strange numbness in my legs that was starting to scare me. I remember sitting in a long meeting with my ankles crossed, and when I tried to stand up I crumpled on the floor and hit my chin on the glass coffee table because my leg had gone completely numb and worthless. As I sat there and shook my leg, I got that"pins and needles" feeling and soon was OK. But it scared me enough to make an appointment with a neurologist, who suggested an MRI to rule out stroke, or a brain tumor(肿). While I'll never know for sure if the vitamins caused my problem, many, many studies have reminded us that pill forms of vitamins and minerals don't provide the same benefit as getting them from food. There's a lot we don't know about how the human body works. Until we know more, I'm getting most of my vitamins from the farmer's market. |