Mainstream medicine has long had a healthy skepticism of dietary supplements, extending to the present day with commentaries like “Enough is enough.” In an essay entitled “Battling quackery,” however, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine , it’s argued that we may have gone too far in our supplement bashing, as evidenced by our “uncritical acceptance” of supposed toxicities; the surprisingly “angry, scornful tone” found in medical texts using words like “careless,” “useless,” “indefensible,” “wasteful,” and “insidious”; and ignoring evidence of possible benefit. “To illustrate the uncritical acceptance of bad news” about supplements, the authors discussed the “well-known” concept that high-dose vitamin C can cause kidney stones, as I highlight in my video Do Vitamin C Supplements Prevent Colds but Cause Kidney Stones? Just because something is well-known in medicine, however, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. In fact, the authors couldn’t find a single, reported case....
