Disclaimer: Any views or advice in this weblog should not be taken as a substitute for medical advice or treatment, especially if you know you have a specific health complaint. Please remember that homeopathic remedies should be individually-selected to match the whole person, not just the unwelcome symptom, and that you should not exceed stated dosages for nutritional supplements without professional advice. For chronic, severe or long-standing complaints, always seek professional advice rather than self-prescribing.

Vitamins plan to cut prison violence
A national newspaper reported recently that prisoners will be given vitamins, minerals and fatty acid supplements in a bid to improve their behaviour and reduce violence amongst inmates, as part of a pioneering piece of research. Some scientists believe that a diet low in important nutrients encourages violent and disruptive behaviour in children and young adults, and I think it’s likely that the modern diet (full of sugars and additives, but low in key minerals) is a potential factor in the rise of crime and anti-social behaviour.

Denial of access to supplements
The future is bleak for consumers in search of therapeutic or optimal doses of vitamin and mineral supplements: in the US, commentators report that the FDA seems to be hell-bent on driving small vitamin companies out of business, pushing prices up to unaffordable levels, and reducing access to disease-preventing nutrients. In Europe, the European Commission is finalising the setting of maximum permitted levels of vitamins and minerals in supplements. A cynic might wonder which industry’s best interests are served in denying us natural supplements and other remedies that help to keep us well.

RDA: just enough to prevent disease
Many recommended daily allowances (or RDAs) of nutrients were set a very long time ago, and were based on the minimum levels needed to prevent disease in the average 18 year old male. Soils have become impoverished since then, pollution has risen and chronic disease is running rampant, so my view is that, for most of us (and particularly for those of us struggling with ill health), RDAs are likely to be woefully inadequate these days. RDAs of nutrients will probably protect you against scurvy or beri beri, but if you want to avoid the top two killers (cancer or heart disease), and other degenerative disease, many authorities suggest that you’d have to adjust intake of many supplements upwards.

Not all supplements are created equal
It’s not just a question of the levels of nutrients in supplements that matters: it’s just as important that supplements are balanced and contain bio-available or nature-identical versions of nutrients. Some cheaper high street brands of supplements can be so hard and compacted as to be virtually indigestible; others are full of dubious ingredients like sweeteners, or so nutritionally imbalanced as to be likely to lead to problems if taken longterm, so it’s vital to ensure that, if we’re going to spend our hard-earned cash on supplements, we get the right ones, and the best quality we can afford. I’ve often seen hyperactive children, for example, improve in leaps and bounds when the cheap supplements given by well-intentioned parents are swapped for better brands.

Supplement quality in the prison study will be crucial
It’ll be fascinating to see the evidence from the prison study when it’s available in a couple of years time, but it will also be interesting to see whether the supplements given to the prisoners in the study were of a decent quality and standard – because unless so, the study may not prove as resoundingly as it should, that levels and quality of nutrients profoundly affect our mood and behaviour.

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