Does it ever amaze you how many pharmaceutical ads you see during the nightly TV news? Often, these ads are coupled with “news” content about new drug development or mainstream medical advice advocating the use of pharmaceuticals. Lacking here is equal time for natural alternatives—lifestyle modifications, dietary considerations and, yes, supplements—that can equally impact our health and wellness.
When we do see the networks address supplements, it’s too often in the form of disparaging reports like a recent ABC News feature in which a Harvard epidemiologist revives the good ol’ “expensive urine” line that has been a favorite sound bite of the anti-supplement crowd for decades.
Meanwhile, huge stories are sidelined—real news that can truly have profound positive influences on our health and wellbeing is ignored or, at best, treated as secondary to the primary items of the day. This was demonstrated yet again in the same ABC feature I just noted when, at the end of the segment, brief mention was made to the fact that 40 percent of Americans may not get enough vitamin D.
What’s the real story here? A pundit proclaiming supplements to be unnecessary or the fact that almost half of Americans are likely deficient in a nutrient that can easily be obtained through a daily supplement? It’s maddening to see such important information hidden in the context of biased reporting.
ABC could have chosen to include the Harvard doctor’s opinions—and that’s just what they are, opinions—as part of a larger story about the real news. Instead, they buried the important information in a puff piece built around one man’s antisupplement agenda.
Luckily, a few people still practice good journalism and report on the important information of the day. While ABC skimmed the vitamin D topic ever so slightly, Rob Stein at the Washington Post dedicated an entire column to the subject.
Mr. Stein lays bare the new facts and the resulting activity surrounding vitamin D, walking the reader through the complex environment that exists where medical research and public policy meet. His focus is on the efforts to convince government to amend the official guidelines for vitamin D intake and he quotes experts who, whether supportive of raising the RDI or not, unanimously recognize that we are getting substantially less vitamin D than our sun-loving, little-clothed ancestors.
Dr. Michael Holick of Boston University, a foremost authority on vitamin D, suggests that everyone take 1,000 mg of vitamin D daily in addition to a vitamin D-containing multivitamin, regardless of government recommendations. Reinhold Veith of the University of Toronto agrees. Even a skeptical doctor at the American Cancer Society goes on record to say that “it’s definitely an area that needs more attention.”
I’ve been aware of this issue for quite some time and have written about vitamin D research in my Research Update newsletter many times over the last five years. In fact, I recently ran across an article I’ve had on file since 2005, which proclaimed vitamin D deficiency to be epidemic. Finally the issue is gaining some traction.
Will you hear more about vitamin D in the news? Perhaps, as the momentum grows and the feds begin the task of reevaluating nutritional guidelines, we will see the mainstream media provide better coverage. But more likely we’ll have to be “conscious consumers” and dig deeper to find, in the words of consummate journalist Paul Harvey, the rest of the story.
