Summary: Chromium and Manganese are probably just toxic, even though they’re in almost all multivitamins.
There are roughly 3 competing theories seeking to explain the widely replicated result that multivitamins don’t improve health:
- Nutrients from a balanced diet of natural food are intrinsically better.
- There are secret components in natural food that science hasn’t discovered.
- Supplements have some beneficial components, but also some detrimental/poisonous ones and so their overall effect is net neutral or slightly negative.
Almost everyone I talk to expresses one of the first two theories, but I suspect the third is probably the biggest problem with today’s multivitamins.
For example, after years of research, no one can locate what Chromium might even do in the human body. There’s no metabolic process it mediates, no natural enzymes the body could form with it or use it with, and no understanding of where it eventually goes in the body after you consume it. So why is it considered “essential” if no one knows what it does? Because 60 years ago, some researchers showed that rats will absorb Chromium if you feed it to them. Also, it’s in topsoil in some parts of the world, and plants will blindly absorb it if it’s in the ground (even though they don’t use it for anything). Unfortunately, this level of evidence is not very compelling since there are many minerals that plants and animals will absorb that are quite toxic.
Consider Lead. We know nowadays that lead is extremely poisonous (although it takes months to notice said poisoning, and indeed, past societies didn’t put this together right away). But what mechanism actually makes lead so poisonous anyway?
“Lead’s toxicity results from its ability to mimic other metals that take part in biological processes, which act as cofactors in many enzymatic reactions, displacing them at the enzymes on which they act. Lead is able to bind to and interact with many of the same enzymes as these metals but, due to its differing chemistry, does not properly function as a cofactor, thus interfering with the enzyme’s ability to catalyze its normal reaction or reactions. Among the essential metals with which lead interacts are calcium, iron, and zinc.”
Chromium is purported to “improve (reduce) blood glucose levels” at very low levels in the diet. So what is Chromium doing? Probably just poisoning you a little and using up your body’s energy to process the poison out of your body. Reducing blood glucose levels is no great feat: parasites and burns can accomplish the same thing, but are typically not recommended despite their efficacy.
So which minerals are beneficial and which ones are going to turn out to be toxins that are displacing beneficial minerals in the body and were only briefly recommended during the “protoscience era” of 20th and 21st century Earth?
Calcium, Sodium, Iron, Copper, Zinc, Magnesium, Potassium, and Phosphorous are all minerals that your body uses for actual processes. However, the body is pretty good at conserving these so you really don’t have to go out of your way to eat a lot of them.
Iodine, Fluoride, Lithium, Selenium, and Molybdenum are five cases where humans think we’re smarter than nature and should intentionally ingest things that disrupt or displace our otherwise natural metabolic pathways. Fluoride displaces some amount of calcium in bones and tooth enamel. Iodine suppresses thyroid function in a way that most researchers see as beneficial. Lithium is poorly understood but it’s probably retarding neuronal excitement in a way that makes people less active / impulsive. This appears to be broadly adaptive for an environment where your brain has to see genocide on TV every day and not be driven to suicide. Selenium and Molybdenum hijack enzyme reactions in a way that retards cell growth and can make rats live longer (but not necessarily healthier) lives by having them grow less but also have less cancer. Having these 5 things in your diet is you taking a calculated gamble that you’re smarter than your body’s natural pathways and that you should mildly poison yourself in subtle ways for your own long-term wellbeing. I’m a little suspicious of each of these, but not so suspicious that I’d recommend against any of them for now. My guess is that history will soon view these the way we now view bloodletting and mercury therapy: As incredibly blunt interventions that work sometimes but probably hurt people nearly as often as they help and nothing like what someone with better information would do. In other words, I expect I’ll still be eating Sodium in 20 years but not as certain I’ll still be taking Iodine, Fluoride, Lithium, Selenium, or Molybdenum.
This leaves Chromium and Manganese as the most commonly recommended minerals that still make their way into most multivitamins despite having no proposed mechanisms of action. Manganese is most definitely a neurotoxin and probably just all around terrible for you. And Chromium is such a costly poison that it takes significant energy to process it out of your body – or as nutrition researchers commonly phrase it – an essential mineral that improves blood sugar control. You should probably avoid supplements with either of these two if you can. And if your vitamins have Boron, Vanadium, Silicon, Cobalt, Nickel, Arsenic, Tin, or Aluminum, you can conclude that your supplement maker is extra incompetent and including things with known negative side effects. It’s probably down to them hoping you’re the type of idiot who is more likely to buy multivitamins with 30+ vitamins and minerals because they sound more complete than ones with only 25 vitamins and minerals.
23 Responses to “Most multivitamins have these 2 toxic minerals in them”
February 10
Denis OdinokovAny reference to PubMed?
February 10
Louie Helmhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018493/
February 10
Louie Helmhttp://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00775-010-0734-y
February 10
Marius van Voorden*submits chromium paper to examine.com
Unfortunately they don’t have a separate page for manganese, so I can’t submit that anywhere.
April 22
Louie HelmThe examine.com people are really good. Glad you’re helping them become even more comprehensive.
February 10
William EdenYou say some reasonable things, and then in others you go much too far, which hurts your credibility.
We *used* to believe that Selenium was just poisonous. Now it is obviously extremely important, given that glutathione, the most important mammalian antioxidant, requires Selenium to function.
Iodine also ridiculously important. It only seems to reduce thyroid activity in cases like Hashimoto’s Disease, where by making the thyroid more active you’re just increasing auto-antibodies. The Japanese consume 5 mg/DAY of Iodine, the highest average intake in the world, to no ill effect, and indeed have some of the fewest thyroid problems in the world. Ever heard of goiters?
To steelman your point, I hope you’re just saying that we tend to take these things in excess. But our body has a very well established, and absolutely critical, use for them.
February 10
Marius van VoordenHm, interesting. I may need to go look for a different multivitamin to supplement my Soylent. Too bad, the one I have now was pretty well-balanced…
February 10
Benjamin Ross HoffmanA multivitamin to supplement your Soylent???
February 10
Marius van VoordenBenjamin: I have a DIY soylent, the multivitamin is basically part of it. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aginfn56EnJmdEhZbF9fd1ZtaC12QXgzVm8wbTlYenc&usp=sharing
February 10
Benjamin Ross HoffmanOK then. That makes sense.
February 10
Artem LamninI’ve found vitamin D useful for combating symptoms of SAD and vitamin C helpful for fighting off colds. Lithium is widely used for treatment of bipolar disorder and prescribed by psychiatric professionals. It’s not an otc “multivitamin” and it’s got nothing to do with “seeing genocide on TV”. Anti-fluoridation has been a thing since the 50s and has yet to show any negative impact from fluoride content in the water on human health. It likely has about as much validity as the pseudoscience behind the claim that vaccines cause autism. Same for iodine. Medicine as a whole is about us deciding that we’re “smarter than our body’s natural pathways” and putting chemicals in our bodies to interfere with those pathways. Otherwise, our “natural pathways” would ensure that we’d all croak at 35 like people used to back in the day before anti-septics and modern medicine. I dont know anything about chromium or manganese, but agree with the overall gist of the article, in that people who are on a normal diet do NOT need to take multivitamins. In fact, taking stuff like vitamin A supplements can actually cause an overdose and is highly recommended against by nutritionists. You should write an article about aspartame and the diet soda industry and what the evidence for/against is. Or maybe GMOs or Omega-3 fish oil pills.
February 10
Louie HelmWilliam: Did you think I said not to take Iodine and Selenium? I don’t think that and don’t feel that I’ve said that above.
The only minerals I recommend against are Manganese and Chromium (and other random minerals that almost everyone agrees are non-essential and/or poisonous).
Perhaps my larger point is something like: There are more reasons to believe that you’re ingesting too many of the wrong things (due to how easily your mineral pathways can get distorted by the wrong metals in your blood) than to imagine that if only you were taking Yttrium or some other random new mineral that you would suddenly be better off.
I think that’s a slightly novel prediction — most people probably intuitively have seen how the number of minerals considered “essential” has grown over time and therefore believe the best vitamins in 20 years will have 2x as many minerals in them as today’s vitamins. I expect they will have fewer.
February 10
Benjamin Ross HoffmanLouie, I was also surprised by the Iodine part.
February 10
Scott SiskindFish oil has been found a lot more useful when taken as food than when taken as a supplement. This suggests that there’s some truth to the argument that dietary nutrients > supplement nutrients for some reason, which makes me think the “subclinical chromium/manganese poisoning” hypothesis isn’t entirely necessary.
Still, good work pointing out that there’s no reason to have quite so much heavy metal in vitamins.
February 12
Amit AminNo, much of that evidence is correlational. That is, folks who are more likely to eat foods containing fish oil are healthier. The conclusion we draw is that eating fish is good for health. But these same folks are also more likely to exercise, have a higher income, eat other healthy foods, etc…
I’m not suggesting that fish isn’t healthy. But fish oil? Even when taken as a food, I’m not convinced.
February 10
Indiana BonesWhat is the best way for a vegan to get b12? I usually get mine from leafy greens. Do B vitamin supplements do anything at all?
February 10
Taurus“What is the best way for a vegan to get b12? I usually get mine from leafy greens.”
No, you aren’t; you’re thinking of some other micronutrient…
B12 is synthesized by gastrointestinal microflora/bacteria; unfortunately, this typically takes place beyond the site of B12 absorption, meaning that the flesh of herbivorous ruminants (animals that synthesize B12 in the rumen), or the bacteria itself (ie in feces) are reliable sources, or fortified foods, or supplements…and that’s about it.
Since you say you’re a vegan (I’m essentially a flexitarian), I’d strongly recommend that you take a look at Jack Norris’s B12 page at veganhealth.org
http://veganhealth.org/articles/vitaminb12
B12 is extremely important, especially for vegans. Get some bloodwork done, assess b12 and folate levels. Supplement as needed in consultation with your primary care physician. Consider alternatives such as methylcobalamin and L-methylfolate. Get your DNA sequenced and take a look at your MTHFR SNPs.
February 10
Steve OmohundroThanks Louie, very interesting insights! Here are two posts arguing that iodine and selenium need to be taken together in the right ratio for common thyroiditis: http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/05/iodine-and-hashimotos-thyroiditis-part-i/ http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/05/iodine-and-hashimotos-thyroiditis-part-2/
February 10
Romeo StevensWRT Manganese I think it is more complex than simply saying it is “toxic.” Much like magnesium, negative effects have been observed at very low levels with supplementation but no dangerous upper limit has been established when getting it from whole foods.
February 10
TaurusThe title of the paper is very cute.
FWIW, the final nutrition facts label for Soylent 1.0 was recently released…
http://blog.soylent.me/post/74770956256/soylent-1-0-final-nutrition
February 11
Kelly ScanlonMy study questions from last night! lol. Question: 26
Which of the following is true concerning manganese and patients on long-term parenteral nutrition (PN)?
1: Manganese deficiency occurs in patients on PN for greater than 1 year
2: Hypermanganesemia has been reported only in patients with cholestasis
3: Manganese in commercial trace element preparations may result in hypermanganesemia
4: The best indicator of manganese status is serum manganese
ANSWER #3: Over recent years there have been several reports of hypermanganesemia in patients on long-term PN infusion who were receiving the AMA NAG recommendations. Hypermanganesemia and deposition of manganese in the brain have been reported in patients with and without cholestasis. Manganese is a contaminant of PN solutions which may cause hypermanganesemia. The best indicator of manganese status is manganese superoxide dismutase in mononuclear cells. However, availability of this test is limited. Manganese deficiency has not been conclusively reported in patients on long-term PN.
Question: 27
Which of the following is the best way to determine chromium deficiency?
1: Serum chromium levels
2: Empiric treatment when deficiency is suspected
3: Urinary chromium levels
4: Serum glucose to insulin ratio
ANSWER #2: There are no known reliable indicators of chromium status. Treating hyperglycemic patients with chromium supplementation and observing for resolution of symptoms empirically is the best way to determine if the patient was chromium deficient. Chromium potentiates the action of insulin and has a role in glucose, protein, and lipid metabolism.
February 11
Kelly ScanlonI agree with William in that you report some very credible things, but then go too far & jump to conclusions with others. My jaw nearly dropped when you said I was the source for the chromium/ glucose paragraph indicating glucose drops in response to burns. Being in a stressed state where your energy expenditure is increased does not equal decreased blood sugar levels. On most occasions people in this state are hyperglycemic and in critical care often require insulin to manage. Patient’s have been shown to have better outcomes when blood glucose can be kept <200 & there have been instances in the hospital I work at where someone has received chromium short term (< 2 weeks) to help with this. That is critical care though …and more than not it seems like experimenting. Like you said, likely unnecessary to supplement chromium and manganese appears to be a harmful contaminant like aluminum especially when you're injecting it into your bloodstream!
August 5
Nick WinterDo you have recommendations, then, for a multivitamin that doesn’t include chromium and manganese? Or is there no such thing, those being in the RDAs and all?
Also, what’s wrong with boron in vitamins?