Senate hearing on steroids today

[gh]

Check out the story now posted to front page, which gets into how unregulated supplement sales is a problem finally being looked at. But also mentions the problem of the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, and what a problem it is.

Here's a peek at that little beauty:

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/jaro ... 86,00.html

[Daisy]

Re: Senate hearing on steroids today

1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act

Was this pushed through by the homeopathy lobby?

[gh]

Orrin Hatch is mentioned in the TIME article I linked. As I recall, he ran strong and hard as point man on the whole thing.

[Daisy]

Orrin Hatch is mentioned in the TIME article I linked. As I recall, he ran strong and hard as point man on the whole thing.

The article said "health food industry", I guess that is even broader than homeopathy since it encompasses products that actually contain an ingredient. Pretty scary stuff considering some of the most potent poisons are in plants. Although, they probably avoid those plants since their business model would probably not include killing off their customers.

I love the descriptions of the bills supporters as "medically illiterate".

• Senator Tom Harkin (who believes in the healing powers of bee pollen)
  
  Senator Orrin Hatch (whose state of Utah is a hub for herbal manufacturers)
  
  Representative Dan Burton (the most rabid Congressional opponent of vaccination).

[gh]

Since you're one of our medical literates, I'd be curious as to your take on something that was said on the Jamaican supplements thread, where a poster said,

<<All athletes- and I mean every single one, down to the highschoolers have to take some dietary suppliments and/or vitamins, these with the intention that they help them recover and SUPPLIMENT their nutrition with the aim of helping their programme so they can run faster.....>>

My response was that i'm not sure there's medical evidence to that train of thought. Do healthy human beings really need supplements of any sort, regardless of how hard they train?

[Daisy]

Do healthy human beings really need supplements of any sort, regardless of how hard they train?

Good question. I'd say no, if you eat real food.

To quote Michael Pollan. "Eat Food, Not too much. Mostly plants."

Maybe for an athlete it should be adjusted to "Eat food. More than others. Mostly plants. But don't forget the meat and carbs."

[gh]

I remember sitting at a lunch table in Monaco with Moses Kiptanui and Noureddine Morceli. It was a buffet, and while I sat there with 127 kinds of cold cuts on my plate (before moving on to the real meat!), they gorged themselves on fruit and vegetables and didn't touch any flesh. Neither were vegetarians, they just rarely touch the stuff they said.

[Daisy]

Neither were vegetarians, they just rarely touch the stuff they said.

It would be interesting to get a diet profile on these athletes (I'm sure it's been done).

I'm guessing Reese Hoffa's plate would look more like your own.

[gh]

no turkey leg on mine :-)

[Mighty Favog]

I remember sitting at a lunch table in Monaco with Moses Kiptanui and Noureddine Morceli. It was a buffet, and while I sat there with 127 kinds of cold cuts on my plate (before moving on to the real meat!), they gorged themselves on fruit and vegetables and didn't touch any flesh. Neither were vegetarians, they just rarely touch the stuff they said.

Sounds like the eating habits of my 78-year-old father (who walked 2 miles to his own recent cancer surgery) and 95-year-old aunt. Me, not so much. Eat like a poor person, they say.

I don't know how much stock to put in this, but I've heard the mass-scale vegetable production common in the USA makes trace minerals far less common than they should be. Regardless of health benefits, I'd rather grow my own. (Vegetables, that is...)

[guru]

Neither were vegetarians, they just rarely touch the stuff they said.

It would be interesting to get a diet profile on these athletes (I'm sure it's been done).

I'm guessing Reese Hoffa's plate would look more like your own.

By the same token, a sprinter's training table will(should) look much different than a distance runner's.

[malmo]

Since you're one of our medical literates, I'd be curious as to your take on something that was said on the Jamaican supplements thread, where a poster said,

<<All athletes- and I mean every single one, down to the highschoolers have to take some dietary suppliments and/or vitamins, these with the intention that they help them recover and SUPPLIMENT their nutrition with the aim of helping their programme so they can run faster.....>>

My response was that i'm not sure there's medical evidence to that train of thought. Do healthy human beings really need supplements of any sort, regardless of how hard they train?

Sure there is.

The minimum RDA is a statistical analysis of the individual nutrient requirements compared to a particular population. It is set at two STD (almost twice the statistical mean) so that approx 95 percent of the population will meet or exceed their daily nutritional intake.

Obviously supplements are one way to insure that the daily intake requirements are met, and it should be clear to even the casual observer that athletes, given their higher metabolic demands, would tend to concentrate in the statistical wing (to the right) within a population. On the other hand, consuming massive quantities of vitamins can be counterproductive, and certainly a waste of money.

I remember sitting at a lunch table in Monaco with Moses Kiptanui and Noureddine Morceli. It was a buffet, and while I sat there with 127 kinds of cold cuts on my plate (before moving on to the real meat!), they gorged themselves on fruit and vegetables and didn't touch any flesh. Neither were vegetarians, they just rarely touch the stuff they said.

I was sitting next to Wilson Waigwa at dinner, he looked at me with a pained look in his face and pointed at the shrimp on my plate, "You eat THAT?" he asked, "at home we feed THAT to the dogs."

[Pego]

I'll just repeat what I said a few times around here.

In roughly 50 years in medicine, I've seen just two cases of ricketts in young Gypsy brothers living in horrible sanitary conditions. There was one case of alcohol/tobbaco amblyopia in a chain-smoking-not-eating alcoholic. These were the only dietary deficiency syndromes in my memory. Dietary deficiencies simply do not occur in the so-called first world. Obviously, I cannot comment on Jamaica. Denty Cracker would be the most knowledgeable person around here, AFAIK.

[IanS_Liv]

I remember sitting at a lunch table in Monaco with Moses Kiptanui and Noureddine Morceli. It was a buffet, and while I sat there with 127 kinds of cold cuts on my plate (before moving on to the real meat!), they gorged themselves on fruit and vegetables and didn't touch any flesh. Neither were vegetarians, they just rarely touch the stuff they said.

I don't know about Moses Kiptanui, but maybe the meat wasn't halal?

I'll second the motion growing your own veg (organically). I have my own plot not far from my house where I grow veg, particularly the ones you can't buy or are expensive in the shops! They say there's not much difference in taste, but really, eating something within half an hour of digging it up or picking it tastes sooo much better.

I recommend it - it's good for you and helps to save the fuel bill (and the planet) a little.

[Daisy]

They say there's not much difference in taste, but really, eating something within half an hour of digging it up or picking it tastes sooo much better.

You are not imagining this. Look at the graph below for sweetcorn. That is extreme but something similar will happen for all vegetables.