Dietary Supplements Harvard University

No dietary supplement can replace a balanced diet. Healthy ordinary people do not need routine supplementation. Only pregnant women, the elderly, people with specific diseases or dietary restrictions need to supplement on demand under the guidance of medical staff. There is currently no high-quality evidence to prove that routine supplementation of dietary supplements can prevent chronic diseases.

Don't tell me, I was really shocked when I helped my mother pack her medicine box a while ago. Half of the box was stacked with vitamin C, deep-sea fish oil, grape seed capsules, and coenzyme Q10. She also plausibly said that the live broadcast host showed screenshots of Harvard research, saying that these were "essential for longevity." In fact, it’s not just my mother. When I watch short videos, I often see various merchants using Harvard research as an endorsement to sell supplements. To be honest, most of them are taken out of context and cut off from beginning to end.

Why is there so much misinformation? Essentially, the nutritional community’s own research on supplements has been constantly updated, and many of them even come to completely opposite conclusions. Take the fish oil that everyone is most familiar with. In 2019, a small sample cohort study at Harvard said that supplementing with Omega-3 can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. The merchants directly claimed that "everyone should take fish oil to prevent myocardial infarction." As a result, in 2023, Harvard Public Health followed up a large-sample randomized controlled trial of more than 100,000 people, which directly overturned the previous conclusion: daily supplementation of fish oil by healthy ordinary people cannot reduce the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke. Only patients who have been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease can benefit from supplementation as prescribed by their doctor. Research on vitamin D has been going back and forth. Sometimes it is said that it can prevent osteoporosis, and sometimes it is said that supplementation is useless for ordinary people and may increase the risk of kidney stones. It makes ordinary people not sure which one to believe.

This does not mean that all supplements are useless. Harvard’s guidelines also make it very clear that there are several groups of people who really need supplements. For example, it is a global consensus that women preparing for pregnancy and early pregnancy should take 400 μg of folic acid. ； The digestion and absorption function of elderly people over 65 years old has deteriorated. Even if they eat a normal diet, it is difficult to meet the intake of vitamin B12 and D. Supplementing according to the doctor's advice can reduce the risk of anemia and osteoporosis. ； There are also strict vegetarians and people who have had gastrointestinal surgery with impaired absorption function. They also need to make up for whatever they are missing based on the test results.

Let me tell you something interesting. In a previous interview, the director of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard Public Health also said that except for taking a vitamin D supplement every day (because he stays in the laboratory all year round and rarely gets sunlight), he does not take any other supplements. This is what people who study nutrition do every day. We ordinary people are just joining in the fun. I had a fitness friend last year who heard that Harvard research said that creatine can improve exercise performance. I bought the highest dose and took it for half a month. After taking it for half a month, my feet hurt and my uric acid spiked to 580. It turned out that his kidney function was weak and he couldn't metabolize so much creatine. Taking supplements without taking it would cause problems.

I worked on a project for two months in the past two years, and I always felt tired. I wanted to buy multivitamins at first. I looked through the consumer nutrition column of Harvard Public Health and was told to see if you can eat 1 pound of dark green vegetables, about 200g of high-quality protein, and 300ml of milk every day. If you can do this, there is no need to spend this money. During that time, I deliberately adjusted my diet, adding a boiled egg every morning, two extra servings of vegetables at noon, and sugar-free yogurt in the afternoon. Within a week, the feeling of lethargy and fatigue was really gone. It was much more effective than just taking a vitamin before.

Of course, there have been different voices in the academic community. For example, a team specializing in antioxidant research believes that modern people often eat processed foods and generally have insufficient intake of antioxidants in their diet. Appropriate supplementation of antioxidants such as vitamins C and E can reduce oxidative damage. However, this part is still in the stage of small sample research and has not been confirmed by large-scale clinical experiments. Harvard's official guidelines have not adopted this recommendation.

In fact, to put it bluntly, dietary supplements are meant to be "supplements", not "staple foods". If you really want to pursue health, it is better to eat the food on your plate first than anything else. If you are really not sure whether you should take supplements, don’t believe what the live broadcast says. Go directly to Harvard Public Health’s official website and search for “Dietary Supplement Guidelines”, or get a nutrition department number from a regular hospital. For a dozen dollars, it is much more reliable than paying the IQ tax for supplements that cost thousands of dollars.