Pseudovitamin

From RationalWiki

Pseudovitamins are substances which are not in any sense accepted as vitamins, or necessary for human nutrition, but are peddled as such by hucksters on the Internet and by shady players in the dietary supplement industry. (This list is limited to substances which are clearly not vitamins and promoted by quacks, and does not include the quaint and archaic nutrients listed in texts from WWII and before, i.e. vitamins B4, B8, F, G, H, L1, which were either renamed or reclassified out of the vitamin category, nor the joke "vitamins" like vitamin I for ibuprofen and vitamin T for tequila).

• "Vitamin B15" - dimethylglycene or pangamic acid, currently being touted as an autism cure. During its previous run of popularity (1978-80) it was touted as a suppressed athletic performance booster used by the Soviets.
• "Vitamin B17" - Laetrile, a worthless cancer remedy that breaks down into cyanide in the body.
• "Vitamin B22" - some unknown Aloe Vera concoction and probably completely worthless. Appears to come from the 1973 book Know Your Nutrition by Linda Clark, claims that this "vitamin" exists made a comeback in the late 1990s thanks to teh Internets.
• "Vitamin O" - a junk dietary supplement sold on the Internet purportedly containing 30,000 parts per million of oxygen, but when tested by the Federal Trade Commission was found to mainly contain salt water and germanium. See oxygen therapy and this Sloan-Kettering fact sheet.
• "Vitamin P" - citrus bioflavonoids. Not a "vitamin" in any sense, and indeed over 1000 different substances exist which are classified as bioflavonoids. Some of them such as quercetin are antioxidants but that doesn't make them vitamins, nor does it make nonspecific "citrus bioflavonoids" supplements, which could contain any of 1000+ different substances, worth your money.
• "Vitamin T" - an infamous quack supplement sold in the past, but nobody seems to really know what it is which is a good sign to stay well away. It is purportedly found in sesame seeds, egg yolks, and, heh, termites and meal worms. Powdered ground-up termites - yum! This is supposedly a growth factor of some kind. It is unclear whether the T stands for Termites.
• "Vitamin U" - S-Methylmethionine, found in raw cabbage juice. This was a health fad during the 1950s and claimed to be a cure for ulcers. See raw foodism.

Popular alternative health books like Earl Mindell's Vitamin Bible have an annoying tendency to list these pseudovitamins together with real vitamins as if there were no difference. Many of these substances are claimed to be "vitamins" by their promoters on the dubious claim that the illnesses they are purported to cure are caused by nutritional deficiencies of the substance in question: cancer by a deficiency of Laetrile, ulcers by a deficiency of S-methylmethionine. This is, of course, bogus with no scientific evidence to support it. It is unclear whether termite infestations of your home are caused by a deficiency of vitamin T in your diet, however.

Articles in RationalWiki related to pseudo-studies
	Pseudoarcheology - Pseudohistory - Pseudolaw - Pseudomathematics - Pseudoscience - Pseudoscience list - Pseudoscience in advertising - Pseudoskepticism - Pseudovitamin