Growing old allows one to experience a number of human marvels and misadventures, expanding exponentially through the years. Myself old, have witnessed many human triumphs and failures, also discovering long ago, how humans place new information in a limited context: Here today ideas gone tomorrow coupled with having been wrong, becoming history, not education. 

And while enough time has past for most to be educated about the hazards of lead, asbestos, formaldehyde, BPA, PVC, FenFen, hormone replacement therapy, and the litany of substances widely used before proven harmful, many remain uninformed about the growing list of substances recommended and voluntarily consumed or exposed everyday: products of commerce advertised to become positioned in our pursuits of health.

Succinctly, so everyone knows, young or old, since DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, science got it wrong with vitamin A and beta carotene, also tocopherols and vitamin E. We did not see the writing on the wall with calcium, vitamin D, or B12, nor the light with vitamin C, K, folate, and selenium. We missed the boat on protein, sugar, fiber, and sodium, and just like we threw the wine with the cork isolating plant substances, such as berberine, valerenic acid, and artemisinin, we cannot see the gorilla standing center court with our eyes focusing on Omega 3 and suggesting fish oil supplements or fatty fish three times a week, thus equal to harvesting 5 trillion fish from polluted oceans and waterways each year; OR the archaic practice of fluoridating drinking water supplies, focused on setting safe limits for concentrations without considering safe limits for consumption. Nonetheless, this year marks the fifth update of government food standards since its creation fifty years ago. Human history clearly reveals of how scientific attempts to treat the symptoms of our modern pursuits of health fail, killing us and the planet.

I still shelve my grandmother’s book, The New Health Conscience, The Modern Science of Health, 1915, addressing the prevalence of ill health coinciding with growing industry and prosperity a century ago, J.C. Elliot suggesting “[the work of the physician will be the selection of our food supply, rather than the selection of our drug supply”, revealing how long humans have anted up to scientists and industrialists with their lives.

It is beyond science and its one puzzle at a time solving capacity to prove any of life's puzzles without lots of knowledge, time, experience, history, and a bit of luck. Most facts of discovery do not remain facts, given enough time and further discovery.

Humans have long acquired what they need from plants. Need vitamins and minerals-eat plant foods; melatonin-turn off the lights and eat plant foods; CoQ10-quit sugar and eat plant foods; creatine—exercise and eat plant foods; DHA—eat whole plant seeds… In the absence of factories, supermarkets, restaurants, and drug stores, humans once sourced their nutrition consuming food, not nutraceuticals or supplements.

As we wait to get the facts straight, supplements for nutritional health will be marketed before proven harmful, whereas, unlike a rainbow, there is a pot of gold to be found selling the magical ideas of supplements to compensate for modern diets that too are killing us.