Lecturer: OK, we’ve looked at the history of vitamin supplements and
thought about why people take them. We’ve also considered the reasons
why some health professionals are critical of the vitamin supplement
industry. Now work with a partner and discuss the key issues.
Lucy: Sam, shall we work together?
Sam: Sure. Let’s go over the history.
Lucy: Well, before the 1900s, when someone became weak and tired,
and it wasn’t clear why, doctors assumed they were suffering from an
infection – like a virus.
Sam: Or they’d been in contact with something poisonous or harmful. (21)
Something they’d handled or eaten. Doctors had no other explanation
for it.
Lucy: But in the early 1900s, that changed. That researcher in the
US -Joseph Goldberger, – he realised people who basically lived off
corn – they were getting ill because they weren’t eating anything else. (22)
Sam: Exactly. And other researchers were realising the same thing. Like,
in places where people only ate white rice – they were suffering from a
disease called beriberi.
Lucy: So the researchers concluded that there must be something
missing – that the stuff some people were eating had no nutritional
value. And from there, researchers began to identify vitamins – like A and
B – for the first time.
Sam: A huge scientific breakthrough.
Lucy: So doctors, the public, ...everyone got to hear about vitamins – first
that they existed, and second, you needed them to be healthy.
Sam: But it was governments that were really worried about vitamin
deficiency. Certainly in the US and in the UK, at least.
Lucy: What do you mean?
Sam: Well, in the 1930s those governments were worried about people’s
general health, because everyone was suddenly buying canned fruit,
artificial butter, meat in tins...that kind of thing. (23) It became very common.
And so newspapers were featuring lots of government reports about how
serious this was.
Lucy: I see.
Sam: And then, some people saw a business opportunity.
Lucy: Naturally.
Sam: In the 1940s, companies started making and selling vitamin
supplements in bottles. And they decided the easiest way to market
them was to target housewives.
Lucy: Why was that? Because housewives were responsible for keeping
families healthy?
Sam: I’d say so. In the weekly magazines housewives read, the companies
made exaggerated claims about what the supplements could do, and
they showed pictures of rats in a laboratory before and after they were
given vitamins. The ‘before’ pictures showed the rats looking very sick. (24)
Lucy: So they scared the housewives into buying their product.
Sam: Apparently.
Lucy: But vitamins were still expensive, weren’t they? It wasn’t until the
1950s that more people could afford to buy them.
Sam: Why was that?
Lucy: Well manufacturers had discovered how to produce vitamins
artificially and in enormous quantities in their factories. (25)
Sam: I suppose that’s what goes on with any product. It starts
expensive until manufacturers adapt their technology. Were there any
developments in the 1960s?
Lucy: Companies changed their promotional strategy to increase their
sales. They used movie stars to say how effective the supplements were. (26)
Sam: That’s still true today. Celebrity endorsement really seems to
work. Someone on the TV says vitamins have made them healthier and
immediately more consumers go out and buy them.
Lucy: So apparently the number of Australians taking vitamin
supplements has doubled in the last decade.
Sam: Incredible. I suppose so many fitness-related articles recommend
them.
Lucy: I wouldn’t say that that’s the reason. According to the research I
read, many Australians are just taking a more active approach to staying
well. They don’t want to rely on their doctor for everything, so they’re
turning to vitamins. (27) They can take those themselves and feel they’re
doing something positive.
So it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact the price has dropped
because so many companies are making supplements.
Sam: I doubt it. Even people in lower socio-economic groups are buying
them, apparently.
Lucy: Most of my own research has been about the US vitamin
supplement industry. Did you know the industry is under no obligation
to prove that their supplements actually work. I don’t think that’s right. (28)
Sam: How do you mean?
Lucy: Well, in the US, the Food and Drug Administration department
regards vitamin supplements as a food. With medicine – manufacturers
have to demonstrate that their products really can improve people’s
health, before they go on sale.
Sam: But you said vitamins are classed as a food.
Lucy: Yes, so the industry can sell whatever vitamin supplements they
like, you know: ‘This one will improve your brain function’ - even if
there’s nothing to support their claims.
Sam: That Danish experiment – thousands of people took part in that.
Lucy: Yes, the scientists wanted to see if high doses of vitamins really
could prevent medical problems like heart disease. Or just reduce the
chances of people getting a simple cold.
Sam: But the ‘high dose’ people were just as likely to get sick as the
people not taking any vitamins. That’s not to say that scientists now
know everything about vitamins. (29)
Lucy: No. Like you say, investigations and long-term trials need
to continue before they can be certain about what taking vitamin
supplements can actually achieve.
Sam: But in the meantime, do we need stricter regulation of the
supplement industry? Do you think people would stop buying and taking
vitamins if they were told it’s a waste of time?
Lucy: Hardly. No one likes being told what they can or can’t buy…
especially where health is concerned. (30)
Sam: Fair enough. I guess if the government made it harder to get certain
products, like say, fish oil with vitamin D, people would protest.
Lucy: They certainly would. What I think is that...
