The Alan Gaby, MD Editorial in the Feb/March 2014 issue of Townsend Letter… is the expected rebuttal to that editorial titled “Enough is enough: stop wasting money on vitamin and mineral supplements.” It was previously published also in Huffington Post.
On Dec. 17, there was widespread coverage in the news media of an editorial that appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine (Annals), under the title, "Enough is enough: stop wasting money on vitamin and mineral supplements."(1) The authors of the editorial concluded, "We believe that the case is closed -- supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful. These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough."
However, the editorial appears to be biased and to lack scholarship, as it is based on selective reporting and a superficial analysis of the vast and complex body research on the health effects of nutritional supplements.
The editorial focused mainly on three studies published in that issue of the Annals. The first study found that supplementing with large doses of vitamins and minerals after a heart attack reduced the recurrence rate of cardiovascular events (such as heart attack, stroke, or heart surgery) by 11 percent, compared with a placebo. (2) However, because this reduction was not statistically significant, the editorial concluded (incorrectly) that the treatment was ineffective. The failure to demonstrate that an effect is statistically significant is not the same as demonstrating the absence of an effect.
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Dr. Gaby received his undergraduate degree from Yale University, his M.S. in biochemistry from Emory University, and his M.D. from the University of Maryland. He was in private practice for 19 years, specializing in nutritional medicine. He is past-president of the American Holistic Medical Association and gave expert testimony to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine on the cost-effectiveness of nutritional supplements. He has written numerous scientific papers in the field of nutritional medicine. Dr. Gaby has recently completed a 30-year project, a textbook of nutritional medicine, which was published in January 2011 (www.doctorgaby.com).
