As a daily vitamins and supplements taker, I was glued to my TV set when I saw Suzanne Somers took on O’Reilly on Vitamins on the Factor program the other night.
O’Reilly cited his bad experience from taking the red yeast to lower his cholesterol then he wanted McCain to pass the bill that will put label on the supplements.
I have heard the rumor on McCain’s bill that would regulate the supplements, but has never had a chance to find out what it really is. After listening to this exchange, I went to google and was surprised to read the tones from vitamin takers and people that are against this bill.
While I was sympathetic to Bill’s experience with red yeast, I felt sorry that he has jumped into conclusion against the supplements for the following reasons:
- Even Foxnews own A Team member, Dr. Izzy Rosenfeld suggested people to take among others, Omega-3, Vitamin D and Resveratrol.
- Dr. Izzy admitted that he took Omega-3, Vitamin D, Aspirin, and Resveratrol daily, and in
- other video that I had seen, Dr. Izzy admitted that he also takes pycnogenol every morning,
- All those statements came with the disclaimer that Dr. Izzy never received a dime in mentioning the product name of those supplements.
However, Bill’s experience didn’t surprise me. My doctor didn’t know anything when I told her for the first time that my seasonal allergy was gone because of pycnogenol. She argued with me that if it was so good, why she had never heard about that name before?
Of course if she would have just visited the National Institute of Health Pubmed site, she would have found that (as of today) there are 199 entries on pycnogenol and 154 entries on olygomeric proanthocyanidins, if we dont care about the 50 pages list of publications that can be found in Horphag’s site — the producer of pycnogenol.
As for putting label on the supplements, I thought, many high quality products out there have complied and every bottle of the supplement they sell carries the label. A quick check in FDA website shows that as early as 2007, they have already provided some info on what you need to know about Dietary Supplements. FDA had also issued the warning against red yeast around that time. When did you take the red yeast, Bill? Long before that?
The other thing that I thought has proved that Suzanne Somer was right came from the admission of O’Reilly at the end of the interview that Suzanne is older than him. 
At first I didn’t believe that. After all Suzanne looks much younger than Bill in the video. But Wikipedia confirmed that it was true. In addition Bill admitted to have cold during the show while Suzanne looks very healthy and vibrant to me. May be I was biased because Suzanne and I are both vitamins and supplements takers. But hey, I thought Bill was fair and balance.
If I don’t take vitamins and supplements and only become a guinea pig for pharmaceutical industry new high blood pressure drugs, definitely I would not be able to complete the 5K-run last October and my arthritis and constant leg cramps due to the use of diuretics would have killed me. But okay Bill. I think you’re not the type that spending too much time surfing like me. If you just google the ‘side effect of red yeast’, you might not jumped ahead to take that red yeast pill before checking with your doctor that knew about the supplements in general. Based on my experience dealing with doctors, too bad that there were not that many out there who really paying attention to their patients wellness beside prescribing the drugs to cure their symptoms.
As for McCain’s Bill, please check it and you decide. Personally, I love supplements and I only take the good ones that always have labels warning us not to take them without consulting our doctors.
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