Posted by kiwiredbeach on November 3, 2006, at 3:28:59
In reply to Re: A question about vitamins, posted by Meri-Tuuli on November 3, 2006, at 1:00:42
Yes MeriI agree with you totally about what you have said. Ive come across a couple of studies on berocca which back your point up
and a similar study
yet your average doctor wouldnt even bother telling you take a multivitamin hmmmm
A more extreme version of Berocca is empowerplus which not only has the vitamins of berocca it also has 17 minerals with it. A lot of people accuse truehope (maker of empowerplus) of quackery and to be honest truehope make claims they shouldnt. However ive read their message boards and read reports from independent message boards and a lot of people seemed helped. In fact more people are helped than one would think. However from there own message it doesnt help everyone and clearly those messages from people who have had success indicate that its not an instant cure. User talk of a month or two and then rapidly getting better. In some ways this makes sense to me, your body takes years to run down so it must take a little while for things to get better. The interesting thing in the truehope method is they really get you take quite high doses of vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc. They get you to take up to 15 to twenty pills a day in the startup process. Sounds an increadible amount but each pill is small. (easier for kids to swallow)When you buy the medication you also get free phone counselling and advise (might explain why its so expensive)which from the message boards users do use the service and many do find it helpfull.
The point that truehope get themselve into hot water and make a lot of enemies is they try and get all users off there pmedic drugs. On the message board you really do see people suffering during this process, yet you do see people talking about success at the end. Yet this approach doesnt work for every one and there has been a well known case of a schizophrenia sufferer who tried the truehope method went off his medication (which did work well for him according to his parents) and went down hill rapidly. His story made it into the papers and gave a lot ammo for the enemies of truehope which are many. Ive never seen such a storm over a health product, health canada tried to shut them down(to be honest truehope make big claims) and the whole thing went to court. The judge decided heavily in favour in truehope and Ive read the judges written statement and he says from the evidence put for him empowerplus works.
Ive tried to find evidence against truehope and they do have some enemies. Most of the critics claim that there is no double blind studies done, however when truehope tried to run studies health canada shut them down. Even some of truehope critic admit thats theres been some political interference with truehope.
However what I cant get out of my head is that so many people claim empowerplus seems to work for them. Not all of them are liers and been posting in favour of truehope to help a fraud continue. If its a fraud then why did they win there court case, health canada had a team of lawyers to prove its was a fraud. Yet the judge came HEAVILY in favour of truehope, saying they had a duty to sell it.
Im not saying that truehope have a wonder cure because it clearly doesnt work for everyone (they claim 80% of people respond hmmm)yet there method does seem to work for some people.
I wonder if stress and poor diets run our brains short of the nutrients that keep it working. Im also wondering if theres a subset of mentally ill who are really suffering malabsorbtion which pdoc drugs can help but would even better helped with proper nutrition which few of us get. In fact when your feeling poorly its hard to eat a balanced diet anyway. So vitamin and mineral suppliments come even more important.
I not planning to go and buy empowerplus at the moment and im not stopping my paxil (which ive just stared) because its worked wonders for me in the past. A lot of people get help from drugs and I still think the right drug for the right person is the most effective treatment. I also believe augmentation is ok for maybee two drugs but some times you see augmentation get out of hand.
Ive clearly got to much time on my hands this reply is getting into a novel. However the empowerplus approach of bombarding the body with everything seems to work for a lot of people. I would really appreciate if other people read and reply to this because empowerplus might not be quackery and a strong theraputic method might be available here.
Cheers kiwi
> > > a fraction of the nutrients that they contained even 50 years ago.
>
> This is very true. Its a myth you can get all the nutrients you need from a 'balanced diet'. You need supplementation as well. Plus, evolutionarily speaking, it wasn't *that* long ago our diets changed from hunter-gather diets to more agriculturally based ones. Our intake of vitamin C, for example, would have been much much higher back then.
>
> And there's a world of difference between getting enough nutrients to stop disease and getting enough for optimum health to prevent cancer etc.
>
> Meri
>
>
poster:kiwiredbeach
thread:699718
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20061013/msgs/699972.html