Is our food still what it used to be? In part 2, Udo Pollmer takes a closer look at vitamins. Sometimes there are more than a hundred different substances to consider, with vitamin potency ranging from zero to 100. But nobody knows for sure. Fraudsters exploit this confusion: They trick people into believing that they absolutely need extra vitamins.
by Udo Pollmer September 12, 2024
After the minerals in the first part, let's now take a look at the vitamins. We start with the folates, a group of B vitamins. A few years ago, analysts realised that our food contains other, previously unknown variants of folates. They promptly found...
...levels up to 10 times higher than before.1 What do you do in the face of abundance? A wise person would say, wonderful, nobody needs to fear a shortage any more.
A less appetising sort of contemporary said: "We need to increase the requirement so that we can continue to draw on it for advice. No sooner said than done: the daily requirement rose by 100 µg to 400. It has since been lowered again, presumably because the committees have realised that folic acid supplements are a superfood for pathogens and cancer cells.2-6 People don't like to talk about it. We can all sympathise with that.
A clear indication of dishonest intentions is the wording: "With a balanced, healthy diet, you don't need supplements". Hypocrisy, hypocrisy. As we all know, no sensible person can keep down this supposedly "healthy diet" in the long term. A carafe of water - drink a lot! - is simply not enough to successfully expel a gently baked, low-salt and low-fat wholemeal pizza with broccoli and soya fillet pieces into your stomach - without a return slip, of course. By eco-trophological standards, the perfect candlelight dinner for conscious eaters.
The "unhealthy" only includes foods that people like to eat, that keep them energised, that have reconciled body and soul since time immemorial. But be careful! If you don't want to follow the advice of the dieticians, hair loss, sagging bums and infirmity are imminent. Experts in "nutritional supplements" are already cheekily circling the anxiously grazing horned cattle on the Internet. They lure you in with the gentle voice of the wolf who, disguised as a kindly grandmother, approached the unsuspecting Little Red Riding Hood to treat himself to a warm meal or to make some other kind of profit.
The milk has done it again
Would you like another example? Let's take the well-known vitamin B2 in milk. Since 2014, it has contained five times as much as in the previous year.7 Until now, cows had managed to hide the vitamin from the nutritional value tables: their metabolism linked it to other milk constituents - and suddenly it was invisible for analysis, but bioavailable for the body.
This must have been deja-vue for some milk researchers. Years earlier there had already been irritations. At that time, they realised that they had confused an antivitamin with the original. The antivitamin was added to the B2 content, although it blocks the absorption of B2 and should therefore have been subtracted. It accounts for up to 20% of the B2 in cow's milk.8 Such a mix-up may seem embarrassing, but it is hardly surprising given the pitfalls of trace analysis and the now large number of B2 compounds.
Each breed of cattle, each individual cow produces a slightly different milk. When milk is traded in glass bottles, the light produces further B2 metabolites.9 If the milk is processed into yoghurt, the spectrum changes again. This is because the yoghurt cultures do not leave some of the vitamin variants unscathed and change them to their liking.10 The process continues during cheese ripening. If the cheese is to be processed further, e.g. for a pizza, there are different recipes and production methods. Anyone who relies on hypothetical average values from nutritional value tables for the purpose of "healthy nutrition" must be out of their depth.
Let's pick out roseoflavin from the B2 analogues.11 The substance has a deceptively similar structure to vitamin B2, but completely different effects. Some members of the streptomycetes, a type of earth-loving microbe, eagerly absorb the real B2, convert it into roseoflavin and excrete it again. Many microorganisms have a high demand for vitamins. They snatch up the fake B2 and then die from this Trojan horse.12 This is because it is a deadly antibiotic for them. The streptomycetes use the antivitamin to eliminate their competitors.
Nicotinamide riboside: where milk and beer flow
Milk also scored another coup: the somewhat exotic nicotinamide riboside was found in it. This is now regarded as a precursor to niacin, a B vitamin.13 The food supplement industry is now fighting for this milk ingredient, which is now synthetically available, to be officially categorised as niacin.
The vitamin in question is not only found in milk, but also in another beverage, beer. A skilfully designed animal experiment was even interpreted by the authors as proof that nicotinamide riboside protects the liver against alcohol.14
This "vitamin" also has a second face: nicotinamide riboside was first identified in 1944 as an optimal growth factor for Haemophilus influenzae, a pathogen that causes nasty respiratory tract infections.15 But other germs also thrive better with this vitamin, such as Salmonella typhimurium or Streptococcus pneumoniae.16
With the weapons of the immune system
The vitamin requirements of our pathogens are higher than those of us humans. Germs and parasites depend on our body and blood to set the table for them. Humans, on the other hand, are omnivores and can cope with all sorts of things, and are therefore far less dependent on vitamins than food specialists. This is why pathogens need more vitamins than humans. This is why the body lowers its vitamin levels during infections in order to deprive the pathogens of vital trace elements and slow down their multiplication.
Low levels in the blood are therefore only sometimes an indication of a deficiency. The attempt to compensate for a deficiency, which has been adjusted by the body for its own protection, feeds the pathogens.17-22 Medications, e.g. against malaria, often work because they lower the vitamin levels in the blood. Business-minded therapists point out the expected "deficiency" to their patients and recommend extra vitamins. Which cancels out the protection.
Bacteria have a tendency to absorb vitamins, which is why they have been used for analysis. If you know which bacteria need which vitamin in particular, you can determine the amount of the substance you are looking for in the sample from the growth of the culture. Bacteria are so keen on vitamins that they can weld even worthless fragments back together. Humans can't do that and don't need it. This is another reason why many of the vitamin values in our tables are dubious due to the uncertainty of microbiological determination.23
The dog in the pan goes crazy
Vitamin analysis is complicated because it usually involves not just one substance, but several, sometimes even many.23,24 A vitamin doesn't just appear out of nowhere and plop down in a vegetable and grin stupidly. It has precursors, then the biochemical pathways branch out and new substances are formed, which are then broken down via further intermediate stages - and all of them are somehow part of the vitamin.
What's more, if the raw materials, whether eggs, carrots or herrings, are processed, there are new reactions. As the analyst is searching for a basically unknown number of variants of a vitamin in a complex matrix, even at trace levels, errors are forgivable.
What's more, every living organism, and therefore the raw materials obtained from it, has its own biochemical pathways. If eggs or carrots are then processed, new reactions occur. As the analyst is searching for a basically unknown number of variants of a vitamin in a complex matrix, even at trace levels, errors are forgivable.
Provitamin A alone has over 600 different compounds. The vitamin efficacy ranges from zero to 100.24 The vitamin scene states the biological efficacy, if known at all, to the second decimal place, even though it knows that this is all speculation. Experiments with mice cannot be transferred 1 to 1 to cats. The biochemical markers used today as surrogate parameters open the door to the manipulation of "requirement figures".
All analytical methods not only require a high level of expertise, but they all have narrow limits. Food producers want as many "vitamins" as possible to be found in their products in order to market them as "healthy", while pill dealers are interested in low values in order to promote their preparations. In the case of many vitamins, the scene demands that other substances be subsumed under this heading.24 In this way, artificial substances that are not found in nature can also be declared vitamins, such as folic acid.
All people are equal - aren't they?
Every person digests differently. It is therefore easy to recognise that not everyone can digest everything equally well. The spectrum of aversions and intolerances is considerable. The most obvious reasons are that some people have a lot of stomach acid, others very little. The pancreas produces more or less proteases, lipases and amylases depending on predisposition and age. The receptors and transporters in the intestine responsible for absorption are slightly different for everyone. In addition, the liver has a highly variable supply of detoxification enzymes such as sulphotransferases.25,26
The above also applies to many other figures that are bandied about. Not even the calories can be reliably determined, because the calorific value, which has always been determined in the laboratory using a bomb calorimeter, has very little to do with what your digestive tract utilises. The method is suitable for heating oil but not for a butter sandwich. In the same way, you cannot refuel your heating oil tank with sandwiches or fried potatoes. Nor does your bowel need to be swept regularly by the chimney sweep.
Decades ago, this nutritional ludicrousness prompted the professor with whom I was allowed to study food chemistry to make a digression. It was perhaps 1977 when he reported that he had once gone to the Institute of Nutritionists to explain to them that nutritional value tables are unsuitable for compiling menu plans or calculating calorie and nutrient intake. According to the professor, his appeal for insight had not been successful.
So only the good Lord knows what's really in that bite of food you're eating. How much of it your body absorbs? Heaven knows! And how much of it you really need is written in the stars.
English Editor: Josef Hueber
References
1. Müller H: Vitamine in Lebensmitteln. Neubestimmung der Folsäuregehalte mit Hilfe der HPLC. Forschungsreport 1994; (9): 22-25
2. Pollmer U, Muth J: Supplemente für Schwangere: Was bringen Calcium und Folsäure? Hebamme 2016; (7/8): 8-10
3. Zhang Y-F et al: Folate intake and the risk of breast cancer: A dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies. PLoS One 2014; 9: e100044
4. Baggott JE et al: Meta-analysis of cancer risk in folic acid supplementation trials. Cancer Epidemiology 2012; 36: 78-81
5. Henry CJ et al: Folate dietary insufficiency and folic acid supplementation similarly impair metabolism and compromise hematopoiesis. Haematologica 2017; 102: 1985-1994
6. Stolzenberg-Solomon RZ et al: Folate intake, alcohol use, and postmenopausal breast cancer risk in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2006; 83: 895-904
7. Koop J et al: Determination of free and bound riboflavin in cow's milk using a novel flavin-binding protein. Food Chemistry 2014; 146: 94-97
8. Roughead ZK, McCormick DB: Flavin composition of human milk. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1990; 52: 854-857
9. Wold JP et al: Nondestructive measurement of light-induced oxidation in dairy products by fluorescence spectroscopy and imaging. Journal of Dairy Science 2002; 85: 1693–1704
10. Gliszczynska A, Koziołowa A: Chromatographic identification of a new flavin derivative in plain yogurt. Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry 1999; 47: 3197−3201
11. Pedrolli DB et al: Flavins and flavoproteins. In: Weber S et al (Eds) Natural Riboflavin Analogs 2014: 41-63
12. Jankowitsch F et al: Antivitamine oder Trojanische Pferde in der Mikrobiologie. Biospektrum 2021; 27: 240-245
13. Trammell SAJ et al: Nicotinamide riboside is a major NAD+ precursor vitamin in cow milk. Journal Nutrition 2016; 146: 957–963
14. Wang S et al: Nicotinamide riboside attenuates alcohol induced liver injuries via activation of SirT1/PGC-1α/mitochondrial biosynthesis pathway. Redox Biology 2018; 17: 89–98
15. Gingrich W, Schlenk F: Codehydrogenase I and other pyridinium compounds as V-factor for Hemophilus influenzae and H. parainfluenzae. Journal of Bacteriology 1944; 47: 535–550
16. Johnson MDL et al: Characterization of NAD salvage pathways and their role in virulence in Streptococcus pneumoniae. Microbiology 2015; 161: 2127–2136
17. McFarlane H et al: Immunity, transferrin and survival in Kwashiorkor. BMJ 1970; II: 268-270
18. Dutta P et al: Antimalarial effects of riboflavin deficiency. Lancet 1985; 326: 1040-1043
19. Bates CJ et al: Effect of supplementary vitamins and iron on malaria indices in rural Gambian children. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 1987; 81: 286-291
20. Rivlin RS: The clinical significance of micronutrients in relation to immune functions. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: 1990; 587: 55-58
21. Herbert V: Folate deficiency to protect against malaria. New England Journal of Medicine 1993; 328: 1127
22. Kupka R: The role of folate in malaria – implications for home fortification programmes among children aged 6-59 months. Maternal & Child Nutrition 2013; (Sp 4): 1-15
23. Ložnjak P et al: Quantification of folate in food using deconjugase of plant origin combined with LC-MS/MS: A method comparison of a large and diverse sample set. Food Chemistry 2020; 305: e125450
24. Konings E et al: Limitations of current analytical reference methods to determine vitamins in foods: Challenges to support regulatory compliance and nutritional composition data. Food Chemistry 2024; 451: e139383
25. Garcia-Conde U et al: Selenium bioaccesibility after in vitro digestion/fermentation of foods differs in adults and children. Food Bioscience 2024; 59: e103964
26. Pollmer U: Was wollen wir essen? Hrsg. Biotest AG: Gesund leben mit Hämophilie. Dreieich 2021: 52-88, 121-131
