Tuft's researcher on aging,  Dr. Robert Russell, notes that "almost no one ages 65 to 75 meets the RDA requirements, poor as they are... Half of all Americans past 60 are deficient even by minimum standards in vitamin E, vitamin C and vitamin A or beta carotene."

Now, I'm going to make a statement that may seem preposterous in our overweight, overfed modern world. But here goes...

You and I are literally starving to death!

Not starving for food...but starving for nutrients that are supposed to be in the foods.  Now. before you think I've gone off the deep end, go back with me in time a few hundred years, when thou sands of supposedly' "well-fed" sailors also starved to death of a disease called scurvy.  What caused this disease? An infection?   No. It was caused by a simple deficiency of vitamin C. When given vitamin C in limes and lemons, they recovered quickly.

What is the scurvy of today? It's heart disease and cancer and the other deadly seven. Our immune systems, weakened because of deficiencies of vitamins and minerals in our food supply, are less likely to protect us. Although we are fatter as a nation than we have ever been, we are starving ourselves to death.  As someone said, "We are overfed and undernourished." Another expert called it "abundance malnutrition." Do you suffer from abundance malnutrition?

Seventy-eight percent of Americans now believe that taking supplements will help maintain their health. [68]   But belief and action are two different things. Surveys also show that only about a third of us take supplements on a daily basis.[69]    Obviously we need vitamins and mineral supplements now, more than ever. Still, there are dangerous and even deadly rumors floating around, like this next one.

Myth #2. Nutritional supplements in pill form don't work.

Eminent researcher Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard is quoted as saying:

"Until quite recently it was taught that everyone in this country gets enough vitamins through their diet and that taking supplements  just creates expensive urine. I think we now have proof that this isn't true."

I was wrong about vitamins

Still, people repeat ancient myths about vitamins they learned from the TV years ago.
For example:

Dr. Art Ulene, the famous TV medical reporter in his recent book,
The Vitamin Strategy, confesses, and I quote:

"I was wrong about vitamins.  Twenty years ago, I told my television viewers that most people didn't need vitamin supplements, If you were eating well, I said, buying and consuming vitamin pills was a waste of money.   I certainly wasn't alone in this belief.  At the time; few people in the medical community supported vitamin supplementation.  Even today most physicians; and perhaps most registered dietitians and nutritionists; insist that people in the United States get all the vitamins they need from their diet alone. It's not surprising that health professionals feel this way After all, that's what we were taught in school  ...  I now know that many of the pronouncements I heard about the uselessness of vitamins simply aren't true. No matter what your age; no matter what your health status; according to new research, optimal doses of vitamins and minerals can improve the state of your health and reduce your chance of developing many diseases and disorders once considered to be almost unavoidable." [71]

Again, according to Dr. Michael Colgan:

"The last, five years have seen the most profound change in medical attitudes towards nutrition. On 19 August 1992, for the first time in its history the ultra-conservative Journal of the American Medical Association recommended vitamin supplements as a way to prevent atherosclerosis and heart disease. Then, in May 1993, the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine published two large population studies; involving 130,000 health workers showing that high doses of vitamin E significantly reduce risks of heart attacks and strokes in both men and women. The researchers showed that it was next to impossible to get sufficient vitamin E, from our food and... made a clear recommendation for vitamin E supplementation... Then, the scholarly journal, Nutrition Review, the bible of nutrition science.. showed unequivocally that it is impossible to get sufficient vitamins from our degraded food supply and criticized the FDA for failing to permit companies to tell the public how vitamins prevent cancer". [72]

In the face of all this new scientific research, I still hear people say silly things like this, "Well, let me try your vitamin for a few weeks and see if I feel any different." It's true, some vitamins can actually make you feel better. But "feeling better" is the least important reason to take vitamins.

You take vitamins as part of your protection program against the deadly seven.

  • You don't feel heart disease. It slowly clogs your arteries until, POW! ... and your heart stops.

  • You don't feel cancer. It may grow slowly for decades undetected and then, BOOM !... it explodes.

  • Stroke is called the silent killer, because it goes completely unnoticed until, BAM! ... and you maybe disabled for life.

  • You don't feel the onset of osteoporosis leaching your bones until, SNAP! ... you break a hip and the damage is done.

  • You don't feel Alzheimer's. It silently destroys your brain cells a few at a time until you don't even know your own name.


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