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Supplement Toxicity

supplements... supplements everywhere. - Meme by charliechoplin ...

The Aisle of Guile

I do not enjoy going to CostCo.  It's just too much stuff, it's just a little anti-small business and I also don't have the space for the quantities they sell.  But when I do have to go, my rule is I don't get a cart - it's a good workout and keeps you from getting too much stuff.  As a result, my wife generally doesn't let me go with her.

BUT, I was getting my tires changed out and had an hour to wander around so I perused the vitamin/medicine area which I like to do places just to see what's out there and how much it costs.  I came across the supplements section and 2 products jumped out at me - "Focus Factor: Nutrition for the Brain" and "Weider Prime Healthy Testosterone Support for Men".

As casual readers of my newsletters or dialoguers would know, I'm not big on nutritional supplements, mainly because in general (to quote my new favorite tv show) "we know it doesn't do anything, but we're not quite sure it does nothing".  As I looked at the ingredient list with a glee rivaling that of a 5 year-old opening presents to find out what miraculous breakthroughs had eluded me through medical school, residency, clinical practice, and lots of hours of continuing medical education, I was thrilled to find new Scrabble words like Ashwagandha and inositol (my wife says I already have an excessive supply of Iknowsitall).

Then I turned to the things that have actual recommended dietary allowances (RDA), I.e. Vitamins and typically you see these up in the triple digits on supplements based on some idea that more is better.  In fact, as I've detailed before, for most vitamins, taking more either means you pee more out or it starts damaging your body somehow.  All things in moderation as some saying goes.

What struck my eye was that both of these supplements had massive amounts of B6 (pyridoxine) - in the range of 500-750% of the RDA.  This has become more important to me the last few years as we've seen the number of cases of pyridoxine toxicity go up, which usually manifests as a severe nerve pain in the feet and hands.  It should also be noted that in the USA, we B6 deficiency is VERY rare as you can find it in a large variety of foods.

Now it's tough to figure out long term damage with vitamins sometimes just because they aren't regulated very well and also because there is little to no money in doing good research on them.  Generally, damage has been done at higher doses than I saw listed but these are also minimally regulated supplements so there's no guarantee what's listed is in there and what quantities its actually in.  Also, if one were to combine a few different supplements that each have lots of extra vitamins, those can add up.

Getting back to the questions of do these supplements even work, given the little medical evidence out there for most supplements, I usually turn to Consumer Reports or some other non-biased information source.  In this case, no good reason to get Focus Factor and also a good review on testosterone supplements and why men with greater than zero testicles generally don't need extra sources of testosterone.
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