From time to time, we read about supplements being “expensive urine.” True, some are, but they are still much cheaper than “pharmaceutical drugs, many of which do not work at all and have side effects that are rare in supplements. Studies po-pooing supplements tend to be poorly done and mostly financed by Big Pharma. Often, they are compared to drugs, totally missing the true purpose of supplements.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
To give a more balanced view of this issue, we need to highlight the studies that find supplements to be helpful.
Reference
Micronutrient supplementation in pregnancy may prevent chronic diseases in children
Healio Minute, October 19, 2022
Improving micronutrient supplementation for mothers during pregnancy could help reduce the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases in the next generation, according to researchers. During pregnancy, nutritional conditions can influence epigenetic development and the risk for noncommunicable disease (NCD) later in life.
“Improving nutrition for pregnant females may … serve the dual purpose of directly improving pregnancy outcomes and preventing NCDs in the next generation,” Mia M. Blakstad, PhD, of the department of global health and population at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and colleagues wrote. “As the double burden of disease continues to grow, population-wide efforts to scale up micronutrient supplementation to pregnant females could help prevent both undernutrition and chronic disease.”
Any public health and clinical efforts to increase prenatal micronutrient supplementation “should be prioritized,” they added.
Using secondary data sources from more than 130 countries, Blakstad and colleagues assessed the impact that prenatal supplementation with multiple micronutrients (MMS), calcium or iron and folic acid (IFA) might have on future NCDs at 50%, 75% or 90% coverage.
They also estimated cases of hypertension, diabetes and deaths from NCDs “that could be averted or delayed by scaling up prenatal micronutrient supplementation.”
The findings, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, estimated that more than 51,000 NCD-related deaths — accounting for 0.14% of all-cause mortality — per cohort of 127 million live babies could have been delayed if 90% of pregnant people received prenatal MMS. Additionally, approximately 3 million cases of diabetes and 6 million cases of hypertension could have been avoided.
