Top Doctor: The hidden dangers in your daily multivitamin | Dr David Seres

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health.
We're told vitamins are essential for our health, that they boost our immune system, fight fatigue, and protect us from disease. But what if most of it isn't true? In the 20th century, vitamin supplements were hailed as a breakthrough, curing diseases like scurvy and rickets. But that success story has taken a turn. In the US, a law passed in 1994, helped by a Hollywood ad campaign, removed almost all oversight from the supplement industry. Since then, a $40 billion business has grown in the shadows. One where marketing beats science, and health claims are made with barely any evidence. Dr. David Seres is Director of Medical Nutrition and a Professor at Columbia University. Over 25 years as a physician nutrition specialist, caring for critically ill patients who rely on life-saving nutrition support, he's seen how vulnerable people are to misinformation and how hard it is to tell what really works. In this episode, he exposes the cracks in the vitamin industry, reveals how to spot scientific spin and reveals what could really work to improve your health. David, thank you so much for joining me today.

**David Seres** (1:34)
Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. I'm so honored to be asked.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:38)
So we have a tradition here at ZOE. We always start with a quick fire round of questions from our listeners. Are you up for that?

**David Seres** (1:45)
Sure. Fire away.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:47)
We have some quite strict rules, especially for professors. You can only say yes or no or a one-sentence answer if you absolutely have to.

**David Seres** (1:55)
Okay.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:57)
Did Mel Gibson help deregulate vitamins in the US?

**David Seres** (2:00)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:01)
Can supplements make health claims without real proof?

**David Seres** (2:05)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:07)
Did scientists contribute to an obesity crisis by fearing fat?

**David Seres** (2:11)
Maybe.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:13)
Can supplements be sold in the US without approval from public health bodies?

**David Seres** (2:17)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:18)
Pretty amazing. Final question. What's the biggest myth about vitamin supplements?

**David Seres** (2:24)
The biggest myth about vitamin supplements is that if some is good, more must be better and will have health benefit and will be safe.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:33)
And it's not true?

**David Seres** (2:34)
It's not true.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:35)
I love it. I think those are some rather remarkable answers to the Q&A. Mel Gibson has never made it into the ZOE podcast before.

**David Seres** (2:41)
I love it.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:42)
So all quite startling. And I'd like to start maybe at the beginning of this sort of supplement story. Sure. Because I understand when they were first discovered, like vitamins were a real breakthrough. They like fixed deadly diseases. You know, I was brought up at school in England. So they talked about like scurvy and like sailors would die and they discovered vitamins.

**David Seres** (3:01)
I mean, the whole nickname of British sailors as limies was because they ate limes and they ate limes because it cured scurvy because there's vitamin C in limes. And there wasn't vitamin C in the usual diet of a sailor.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:14)
So that is like a brilliant example about how vitamins can save lives.

**David Seres** (3:18)
And there are many others like the B vitamins that are added to breads and so forth, at least in the US.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:24)
So what's interesting is today we're in a place where this supplementation is hugely widespread, right? In the healthy population. And the research team here at ZOE said it's now a $40 billion industry. And so I would really like to understand with you like how we got here. And maybe we could just start with like what these vitamins were originally designed to treat and how successful they were.

**David Seres** (3:48)
Sure. The history of vitamins is miraculous because there were different deficiencies in different populations in the world. Iodine included, which would cause goiter and cretinism in children, vitamin D, as I mentioned, which caused rickets, vitamin C in sailors, etc. And each one of these was an enormous public health boon. I think that ever since then, we've been waiting for the next big, huge discovery around vitamins. And I think there aren't any left that we are aware of.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:24)
Why do you think that the promise of vitamins has become so attractive for people who view themselves as healthy, and who are not suffering from a deficiency that they're aware of, or a doctor has told them they have?

**David Seres** (4:39)
There's a general feeling in being human that one would like to control one's destiny. And health is this mysterious black box that if you are able to do something now that will give you extended health and longevity, that's very attractive to be able to do that. And vitamins have been held out as this without good proof. But nonetheless, the ability to market them in the way that they're marketed, suggestive of health benefits has fueled this.