Lots of things are good. The problem comes when some people try to codify it, rationalize it, and work to make sure that only their own rationalizations or "codes" are acceptable. Government "testing" or assurances of potency don't impress me at all. The chart is pretty useless overall. Take heart disease, for instance; no single or combination of supplements alone will actually prevent it. Nutrients just don't work that way.
My comment at Claire's blog:
Two problems with the supplement chart. Pretty much the same problem with most western medicine. The human body is an integrated entity, not several thousand unconnected parts. Most western medicine tends to treat each part as a separate thing and ignore most connections. Human bodies are not built like that, and nutrition is a far more complex thing than can be arrived at this way. Everything humans do, think, feel, and ingest are part of that complex matrix and interact endlessly.
Second is that no two humans respond to foods, drugs, or anything else exactly the same. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. The idea that anything like exact information about the affect of something on all, or even most, humans can be found in the usual government testing protocols is unbelievable – especially in isolation from everything else. The idea that these “norms” or even safety can be determined by using rodents is ludicrous, except perhaps as a first pass to eliminate outright poisons.
The problem with poisons or non nutritive components in supplements is a different question and easily solved by some independent testing protocol such as the UL for electric appliances.
Whole, unadulterated foods offer the most likely and safest source for nutrition, since these foods have been in continuous use for many thousands of years. The vitamins, minerals and other complex chemical structures are obviously intended to work together and may, or may not be particularly good for us in concentrations or in isolation from everything else. Just for an example… ordinary salt contains both sodium and chlorine. Either of those elements swallowed alone, in more than a microscopic dose, would be very harmful or even deadly. Yet unadulterated salt is one of the most essential nutrients, despite concentrated efforts by government to demonize it. The bleached and often contaminated stuff sold in grocery stores is the real problem.
I have been involved with medical “research,” and don’t trust much of it at all. The most common thing, in my experience, is that a desired conclusion is decided on first, then the “study” is designed around that to “prove it.” During the “study,” much or all of the data collected that does not “prove” the desired conclusion is either eliminated, hidden or falsified. They lie… a lot.
