Where I love P&T's B.S.! as it's highly entertaining, I wouldn't take it as an authoratative on any of the subjects it has covered. Where they've never done a show on the subject if I wanted to know the views of P&T on vitamin and supplements I'd just ask someone at the Cato Institute (libertarian thinktank)where they get the majority of their expert opinions from (Penn is a fellow there).


As Brian has pointed out before, clinical trials and double blind studies are expensive and who is going to pay for something like that on a product that cannot be patented. Read up on the patent controversy of tumeric for reference.

Speaking of tumeric, it's a good example here as it's a supplement I take and have taken for years. I started taking it right after being diagnosed with cancer and took it all the way through treatment based on the research I had done on it. It tickled me to see the article posted on OCF news (http://oralcancernews.org/wp/the-ma...py-in-suppressing-head-and-neck-cancers/) and it's benefits in conjunction with Cisplatin as I'd had "many" arguements with my MO regarding it. You can imagine the sense of vindication I felt reading that article and emailing to my oncologist..."I told you so!"

Now I understand that this doesn't hold true with every supplement out there (which is why you must research) and I also agree that the average american doesn't need a multivitamin if they are eating a balanced diet (do a Google search on Average American Nutrition and tell me if you think they are eating a balanced diet). The reason? According to The Bureau of Labor and Statistics the average american spends the majority of their free time in front of the T.V. (2.7 hours/day) or socializing while only a fraction (22% of men and 16% of women) participated in sports, exercise or recreation activities.

When you are exercising and using your body, you are tearing it down and rebuilding it increasing the metabolic activities. Your body is burning through nutrients (vitamins, minerals,protiens, fats, carbs etc...) at an accelerated pace relative to the degree of activity you are doing. So the harder you train or the more active you are the more you'll need to consume. You will get to a point the more active you get(as I have, I know I've tracked it) where you won't be able to do it all through a traditional diet...and I eat 6x per day.

Now I liken the healing process after treatment to the most extreme physical training out there so making sure it has all of the rescources it needs to rebuild itself only makes sense to me. Now I've read Charm's post about his physical accomplishments after cancer and I'm proud of him for it, what I'll also point out however is that the Jevity 1.5 he uses is chalked full of vitamin/mineral supplements so why would he need a multi? Knowing how he is I also know he was pretty good about his diet precancer and that helped him lead his active lifestyle, however I wonder if his marathon times couldn't improve if he'd worked with some of the people I have.

I've trained with world class athletes (olympic wrestlers, Abu Dahbi submission wrestler/UfC fighter, olympic boxers) and have seen how nutrition can affect athletic performance so I'll continue to take my cues from them and their trainers as opposed to a medical dr, who I would see if I'm injured or have a medical condition. I'll always take my advice from those that practice what they preach, first hand knowledge has more valuable insights to me.