Yet many mainstream physicians are becoming more and more interested in their powers and pushing them on patients.
The 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act says that supplements can boast any benefit on labels without any proof of effectiveness or safety as long as manufacturers do not claim that the pills cure any specific disease.
Studies on Vitamin E, which claims to improve cardiovascular health, Ginkgo biloba, which claims to improve memory, and Coenzyme Q10, which claims to improve the immune system, gave no indication that supplements pills work.
Many physicians have pushed antioxidant supplements on their patients because of the many healthy properties found in food high in antioxidants. But health officials argue that it's the food that has the positive properties, not the pill.
Dr. Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Laboratory at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, said researchers are only beginning to understand how food works and its complexities. Therefore he said pill manufacturers can not yet understand what to put in the pill to make it as effective as the food.
Dr. Andrew Weil, an alternative medicine guru, said, "There's a compound in broccoli called sulphurophane, which has been of interest as a cancer-fighting agent, and I have seen bottles in health food stores that have a photo of a bunch of broccoli on the label, and the implication is that this is broccoli in a pill. It's not broccoli in a pill. It's sulphurophane in a pill, and that's one element of an incredibly complex plant that has all sorts of different things in it."
Weil still recommended several supplements including vitamin D and selenium to reduce the risk of cancer, alpha lipoic acid to fight off heart disease and diabetes and omega-3 fish oil for brain function and blood circulation. However, he said a balanced diet and exercise are always crucial.
