Anti-Aging Advice: 99 Steps to 100 by Walter M. Bortz, M.D.

Vitamins are like light switches. You need a certain number to light your house. Following the same analogy, having 10 or 100 times that number doesn't make the lights any brighter. Vitamins, unlike food substances, are not, in effect, used up. They act as catalysts to help metabolism happen, but they are regenerated in the process. Consequently, they are needed only in minimal amounts -- just like light switches.

You need 13 different vitamin catalysts. Four of them are fat-soluble (A, D, E and K), and the other nine are water-soluble. The fat-soluble ones are stored in your tissues, and all the others (including all the B vitamins) must be supplied on a regular basis, as they are not stored.

Vitamins and Fast Food
Seventy million Americans feel they need more light switches in their lives, but most don't. Vitamin fever is fed by diets of fast food -- burgers, fries and sodas -- all of which have little value. As an antidote to the quick eat, many resort to vitamins to offset the guilt of other dereliction. The best guilt salve, however, is fruits and vegetables. If everyone ate fruits and vegetables -- instead of junk, plus nutritional supplements -- the supplement craze would have little to justify it.

Diet Right
The central truth of good nutrition is that your needs are best met by a varied and complex diet. As you move closer to retirement age and beyond, however, your total calorie need often falls. What was an easily balanced diet, say, in a 2,500-calorie daily intake becomes a problem when the calorie count drops to 1,500. I often prescribe vitamins to patients in their retirement years, particularly if I feel they are at risk for not eating a well-balanced menu. Perhaps one quarter of older people get by with fewer than 1,000 calories a day.

When I do suggest vitamins, I encourage comparison shopping to be sure that these inexpensive compounds are not "glitzed up." A balanced multivitamin tablet or capsule should cost only a few cents. Remember, too, that since supplements lose shelf potency, you should buy them fresh.

Also, I discourage the ultra high-potency formulas as unnecessary and almost always too expensive. Furthermore, megadoses can be dangerous. There is no evidence that consumption of megavitamins improves exercise performance or has any beneficial anti-aging effects.

Fiber Supplements
Although regular foods are the preferred way of guaranteeing more dietary fiber, there are also a number of proprietary preparations available that all contain psyllium, a purified seed fiber product. These work in the same way as natural fiber, and they are frequently recommended by gastroenterologists for their older patients who may be confronted with any of the conditions noted above.

Bottom Line
Common sense and economics dictate that nutritional salvation is unlikely to emerge from any pill bottle. Vitamin pills are the last resort, leaving good food the first choice. I have never yet met or tasted a supplement as satisfying to eye or palate as a fruit, vegetable, meat or grain.

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