East 12th:
I am open to hearing other approaches to anything, including mental health. There is a serious problem with the discussion with regards to interventions based on lifestyle modification and the array of supplements. Simple problem. There is very close to no research that indicates any efficacy for this. There is good reason to believe that poor nutrition contributes to medical issues, and included here are psychiatric ones. When we engage in the conversation that excludes genetics, biochemical disorders, and the complete ban on medication, we have crossed into territory that is unsafe and poorly supported. There is much anecdotal report about this or that helping for various conditions. Some of these have even intruded into mainstream psychiatry. However, research has not come up favorable.
Some examples. Remember St. John’s Wart? It was heralded as the newest breakthrough to treat depression. So much so that it was found in the major mainstream psychiatric journals, and submitted for research. It was found to have negligible effects, not enough to have clinical use. There is also a major handicap to the industry that produces these vitamins and supplements. There is very little funding to conduct proper research. So either shoddy, unprofessional research gets done, which can easily be refuted by normal science. Or one resorts to anecdotal data, which may be interesting but not informative to the scientist. There have been numerous crazes and fads in this industry that have failed to yield enough data to support the suggestions of miracle cures. Unfortunately, it is only the pharmaceutical industry that is regulated, and can recoup the funds expended in conducting scientific study. The food market, including the supplements lacks that. Money talks.
The production of the many supplements on the market is also a troublesome subject. There is no regulation that assures quality of a product. Every so often, outside studies are done to verify the veracity of the products. A label that attests to containing “50 mg.” of a certain vitamin or supplement may have little to do with what the package really contains. I have spoken to people who work for companies that manufacture these products who have told me that the absence of regulation even bothers them, as they claim no one really knows what the pills contain.
With too little verifiable proof that a substance has any effect, and little reliability that a product is real, there is a severe problem here. To the degree that these packages contain the claimed ingredients, who knows what the side effects are? How about the incompatibility between them or with medications?
I cannot engage in debate, and probable should not do so in the CR. But the role that nutrition and lifestyle play is probably relevant, as it would pertain to anything in the medical field. But the leap to the liberal attitude toward treatment with regimens of supplements is beyond logic. Yes, deficiencies in nutrients can be problematic, and should be treated with supplementation. But as pseudomedical interventions – I see it as a craze and sometimes a costly one.