Mainstream society’s war on supplements in Germany

[Advocate]

Yesterday I listened to a radio interview with a representative of the German customers’ rights agency (Verbraucherzentrale) on vitamin D. She claimed that your body can store vitamin D for the cold season so that people under the age of 60 don’t even need to consider taking supplements. 

From what I understand, vitamin D is one of the most important supplements to take generally speaking, and is likely to help you cope with COVID-19. So I did some research and found that the German customers’ agency and the German society for nutrition are actually engaged in a war against ANY kind of supplement. They regularly post articles on subjects such as vitamin supplements, rhodiola or reishi, and get quoted for “fact checks” by the mainstream media. Their general line of reasoning is: ALL supplements are useless because your body can generate everything it needs from a healthy diet. Supplement companies are just ripping you off.

Honestly I’m baffled by such a perspective. Why would these institutions keep people from taking stuff that could potentially safe their lives? Is it just fear? Stage orange materialist medicine? Or even a naive green attitude towards “unnatural” supplements? 

Edited October 10, 2020 by Advocate

[Village]

Keep in mind that supplements didn't exist throughout 99.9999% of human history. Taking unnatural supplements is only a necessity for those who eat an unnatural diet. Do you know any other animal that needs to swallow pills in order to be healthy?

[PurpleTree]

2 minutes ago, Village said:

Keep in mind that supplements didn't exist throughout 99.9999% of human history. Taking unnatural supplements is only a necessity for those who eat an unnatural diet. Do you know any other animal that needs to swallow pills in order to be healthy?

What i've heard and don't know if it's true. Is that people who have their ancestry in warm, sunny climates like Africa and generally darker skin.

Tend to become vitamin d deficient easily if they live in climates with long, cold grey winters. So they maybe should really supplement it for example.

And many people generally stay indoors too much in winters in colder climates, they need to get out more or supplement.

Also vitamin d is rather a hormone than a vitamin

 

here's from google

"Vitamin D is actually a hormone rather than a vitamin; it is required to absorb calciumfrom the gut into the bloodstream. Vitamin D is mostly produced in the skin in response to sunlight and is also absorbed from food eaten (about 10% of vitamin D is absorbed this way) as part of a healthy balanced diet."

[Village]

2 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

What i've heard and don't know if it's true. Is that people who have their ancestry in warm, sunny climates like Africa and generally darker skin.

Tend to become vitamin d deficient easily if they live in climates with long, cold grey winters. So they maybe should really supplement it for example.

And many people generally stay indoors too much in winters in colder climates, they need to get out more or supplement.

Also vitamin d is rather a hormone than a vitamin

 

here's from google

"Vitamin D is actually a hormone rather than a vitamin; it is required to absorb calciumfrom the gut into the bloodstream. Vitamin D is mostly produced in the skin in response to sunlight and is also absorbed from food eaten (about 10% of vitamin D is absorbed this way) as part of a healthy balanced diet."

It does make sense to supplement vitamin D if you have a dark skin and live in a cold climate. Although the First Nation Alaskans got their D from a diet based solely on fish and meat and they lived to 100+ years usually.

[Advocate]

2 hours ago, PurpleTree said:

What i've heard and don't know if it's true. Is that people who have their ancestry in warm, sunny climates like Africa and generally darker skin.

Tend to become vitamin d deficient easily if they live in climates with long, cold grey winters. So they maybe should really supplement it for example.

And many people generally stay indoors too much in winters in colder climates, they need to get out more or supplement.

Also vitamin d is rather a hormone than a vitamin

 

here's from google

"Vitamin D is actually a hormone rather than a vitamin; it is required to absorb calciumfrom the gut into the bloodstream. Vitamin D is mostly produced in the skin in response to sunlight and is also absorbed from food eaten (about 10% of vitamin D is absorbed this way) as part of a healthy balanced diet."

Yes, you’re right about this. Imagine you’re a man with a severe deficiency in testosterone. That’s about what it’d be like to have a vitamin D deficiency. According to Rhonda Patrick, African-Americans are 28 times more likely to be vitamin D deficient than caucasians in the U.S. She brilliantly illustrates the importance of vitamin D here:

 

[Advocate]

2 hours ago, Village said:

Keep in mind that supplements didn't exist throughout 99.9999% of human history. Taking unnatural supplements is only a necessity for those who eat an unnatural diet. Do you know any other animal that needs to swallow pills in order to be healthy?

I guess the thing is that nowadays we’ve got many awesome tools available that people did not have in the past. So why not use them? Is it also unnatural to use a computer or to have heating at your home? 
In reality, it is very difficult to have sufficient levels of all vitamins at all times. I also believe that the whole point of personal development is not to only be “alright”, but to be super healthy, energetic, conscious. And there are many supplement out there that can support you in that. 

[PurpleTree]

1 hour ago, Advocate said:

I guess the thing is that nowadays we’ve got many awesome tools available that people did not have in the past. So why not use them? Is it also unnatural to use a computer or to have heating at your home? 
In reality, it is very difficult to have sufficient levels of all vitamins at all times. I also believe that the whole point of personal development is not to only be “alright”, but to be super healthy, energetic, conscious. And there are many supplement out there that can support you in that. 

Also the soil is has much less nutrients than in the past. Many vegetables etc. don't have the same amount of healthy nutrients as they did some time ago.

[Hansu]

5 hours ago, Advocate said:

ALL supplements are useless because your body can generate everything it needs from a healthy diet. Supplement companies are just ripping you off.

Lol, because the average diet is definitely a healthy one. Especially for those young people, like students, who rely on frozen pizza and macaroni with the side of pepsi.

[Advocate]

@datamonster @Hansu Exactly. All of this is so obvious, and still these organizations don’t want people to take vitamin D. It’s frustrating. 

[vizual]

The mainstream media in Germany sound like smart people. 99% of supplements are a scam. That whole industry is full with charlatans trying to make a buck from ripping people off. 

[Advocate]

56 minutes ago, vizual said:

The mainstream media in Germany sound like smart people. 99% of supplements are a scam. That whole industry is full with charlatans trying to make a buck from ripping people off. 

Sure, it’s important to be skeptical. Still, did you watch the video in vitamin D that I posted above? Rhonda Patrick makes a strong case in favor of taking vitamin D supplements. 

[vizual]

@Advocate Rhonda Patrick is the biggest hack job herself.

if you worry about nutritional deficiencies, get your blood checked. 

[PurpleTree]

14 minutes ago, vizual said:

@Advocate Rhonda Patrick is the biggest hack job herself.

if you worry about nutritional deficiencies, get your blood checked. 

I did and was b12, d and zinc deficient

[Village]

8 hours ago, datamonster said:

Yeah, and life expectancy was below 30 for 99% of human history. Luckily there's this thing called progress. 

'Average life expectancy' is technically life expectancy at birth - the average number of years a newborn baby is expected to live. This is an unhelpful statistic if the goal is to compare the health and longevity of adults, as the child mortality rate in our ancient past was extremely high. People didn't just drop dead at 30—at their prime,—in fact, if you survived childhood you were likely to live well over 80.

[Leo Gura]

Supplements ain't going anywhere.

You can't even ban cocaine or meth effectively, let along supplements.

The mainstream scientific and medical establishment can be very conservative and closedminded about alternative health issues.

But if you ever get truly sick, supplements could save your life.

Don't forget, life expectancy of people for 99.99999% of history was something like 35. Not to mention all the needless suffering.

And also, every culture has had medicine men as a revered and important role/profession for at least 100,000 years. What is a medicine man but a supplement dealer? Think about it.

Even animals will eat herbs when they get sick. Even animals use supplements.

Making arguments based on what is "natural" is dumb. We live in a highly unnatural world these days. Every gallon of water you drink is filled with mercury, lead, and 100 other toxic chemicals.

[Preety_India]

@Leo Gura  I suffer from severe malnutrition. I'm thinking of taking supplements. Right now I'm scared to go to the store to get them because of the lockdown and Covid-19. 

But im planning to go next week. I really feel like I need them.

 

 

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Preety_India said:

I suffer from severe malnutrition.

????

Maybe, like, go buy some whole food.

[Opo]

9 hours ago, vizual said:

@Advocate Rhonda Patrick is the biggest hack job herself.

Argument? 

[Michael569]

On 10/10/2020 at 11:21 AM, Advocate said:

epresentative of the German customers’ rights agency

doesn't sound like someone who would have gone through years of nutritional training & research 

On 10/10/2020 at 11:21 AM, Advocate said:

ALL supplements are useless because your body can generate everything it needs from a healthy diet. Supplement companies are just ripping you off.

It is true that there are many supplements on the market that are not regulated, contain shitty ingredients and metal binders but it is not true that all of them are useless. There is very strong evidence suggesting that taking vitamin D in months where sunshine is insufficient makes a tremendous difference to the general health of the population. Most people are so incredibly deficient in vitamin D that you can't get that back even by sunbathing daily or eating liver. There are cases when supplementing is extremely important. 

It is not just to have your levels on a certain number but it means your risk of cancer & autoimmunity drops several hundred times. This not a joke, vitamin D deficiency is extremely problematic and unless you live in south Europe or tropic countries you need to supplement throughout the winter. 

[Village]

@Leo Gura Read the comment above yours. Life expectancy is a misleading statistic if we are to compare the health of adults now and then.