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Does Any One Really Need Supplements and Vitamins?

Update as of December 15, 2011

Due to the growing body of scientific evidence, MDPrevent is discontinuing sales of multivitamins of any type. According to Dr. Steven Charlap, MDPrevent’s founder, “It has become abundantly clear that taking multivitamins as an insurance policy is an old wives’ tail that may be associated with increased morbidity and mortality. We have eliminated such products from our offerings as we advocate only selective use of vitamins per individual assessment and consideration. Vitamin D3 will continue to be offered.”

Berries or pills?  Is it really a choice?

We understand the daunting decisions that have to be made when selecting a health product to meet your needs. Specialty retail shops and supermarkets have shelves lined with an endless display of supplements and vitamins and selecting the appropriate item can be overwhelming. At MDPrevent, we have conducted an extensive review on supplements and vitamins and identified the relatively few products that we believe are safe and have an effective value. We will also educate you on how to acquire most of these through natural sources, which is almost always preferable to taking a pill.

Over $28 billions dollars are spent every year on supplements and vitamins. Why? What do they do? Do they help? Do they do more harm than good? Do we need them? Apparently many people think they are worthwhile and are willing to spend freely on them. Often, that’s a mistake. Most commercially available products do little good and some are even harmful, including depleting the effectiveness of prescribed medications.

At MDPrevent, we believe that before you put something in your mouth you should know exactly why you need it and what it will do for you. We also believe that you should know how you can obtain the same product or compound from natural sources. There are now detailed databases, both government and commercial, that have gathered and reviewed all the studies done on certain products, and determined the value and proper use of each product.

Based on extensive review of these databases, we have identified fourteen (14) products that we believe generally do no harm (unless you have allergies, etc.) and have value in specific circumstances. For example, we believe that Melatonin is an effective sleep aid for short-term use, but longer term use should be discouraged. We also believe that fish oil is a viable supplement but not nearly as healthy as eating Wild Alaskan Salmon. We are concerned about calcium supplement pills to avoid bone related diseases because better sources are available than popping pills which recent studies suggest, in the absence of sufficient Vitamin D, may cause heart damage by adding to blood vessel calcification. The list goes on and at MDPrevent, we are ready to give you the answers you seek when they exist and are reliable.

We offer our own private label products which meet our strict guidelines for effectiveness and safety, but you will never be under any obligation to purchase them from us. In fact, we are more than happy to educate you about our products and have you purchase them elsewhere because your overall health and satisfaction is our number one concern. We believe that taking supplements should be a last resort. MDPrevent only offers such products as part of a holistic approach to health and well-being. In addition, every product we offer comes with detailed information about its effectiveness, contraindications, and natural sources.  We don’t offer our products on-line because we don’t want any product used until we have discussed the pros and cons of the specific product with you in person.