Ah yes, the 40,000 women study published by the AMA and being used widely as a hit piece against vitamins, minerals and other supplements in the maim-stream media (note that the above video is from Walt Disney-owned ABC News).

The problem with the study:  the 40,000 women self-reported their use of supplements and there was no differenciation made between unnatural synthetic vitamins and crushed rock minerals and natural whole foods derived vitamins and minerals.  You can take it to the bank that the vast majority of the vitamins consumed were the synthetic vitamins found in virtually all the over the counter supplements.  Petro-chemical synthetics that is.  Coal-tar derivatives.  Likewise the vast majority of minerals was assuredly crushed rock minerals and not those which had already been pre-digested by plants to make them bioavailable for human consumption.

The body knows the difference between the forms of vitamins it has utilized for many tens of thousands of years and synthetics.  In fact, the body most often treats synthetics as unnatural toxins.  Consume unnatural toxins and put crushed rocks in your body for up to 19 years and there would be a tendancy to have health issues.  Especially if you happened to someone who tried to offset unhealthy diet and lifestyle practices with supplements.

Minerals are absolutely essential for proper absorption and utilizations of vitamins.  Thus the vast majority of the women in the study were taking minerals the body could not properly utilize.  Which made those synthetic vitamins that much harder to assimilate.

Had a study been conducted on people who took only whole-foods derived supplements you can bet that the results would have been markedly different.

I note that the study authors and other commenters found in the widespread media reports also tried to further the maim-stream myth that one can get all the nutrition they need from simply eating a healthy diet.  Absolute rubbish! Given today's mineral depleted soils and the foods on the grocers shelves which have had most of the natural nutrition processed out, harmful additives processed in for shelf life, taste, color and texture and the other items found in the SADS diet consumed by most Americans and it is virtually impossible to get even the measley RDA amounts of the limited nutrients on the RDA list, much less the optimal daily amount of vitamins and minerals and the many, many other essential nutrients not even on the list from a 2000-2500 calorie per day diet.

In many areas, the RDA amounts are far below what is needed for optimum health. Instead, they are just the minimum amounts needed to ward off illness - and they certainly are not enough to address deficiencies.  For example, the RDA amount of vitamin C is only the minimum amount needed to prevent scurvy and is nowhere near the amount of vitamin C needed for optimal health.

I have often challenged proponents of the "get all the nutrition you need from a healthy diet" group to come up with a practical weekly diet plan which would give even those measely RDA amounts daily.  No one has ever come close. I submit that the only way to get all the nutrition one needs from diet alone, especially optimal amounts of nutrition, would be to devote considerable time and effort to growing virtually all of your own organic food, including organic meat to consume in at least some quantity, and planning very, very carefully.  And if for some reason you want to go all-vegan, planning even that much more carefully.

The bottom line to me is that certainly one should eat as healthy of a nutrient-dense organic diet as possible to get as much valuable nutrition as possible but that depending on diet alone without the use of items such as organic wild crafted superfoods powders and/or a good whole foods derived multi-vitamin, mineral and nutrient product is not likely to cut it.  And it certainly won't cut it when it comes to addressing deficiencies.

My two cents.

DQ