Whole Foods vs. Pills: Which is Best?

As a cancer dietitian, I have had hundreds of conversations about dietary supplements, vitamins and herbals. Patients want to know if they are safe, if they will interfere with their chemo and/or radiation, and most importantly, if they will work or not.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to these questions. Dietary supplements, vitamins and herbals are classified differently from drugs under the FDA. The industry is not regulated well, and unfortunately, companies are not willing to invest large amounts of money to study products that aren’t going to yield a significant return on investment.

Simply put, there is not much research on what happens when we combine cancer therapies and dietary supplements, vitamins and herbals inside the human body. If you decide to combine the two, there is no guarantee what will happen, if anything at all.

This weekend I read an article discussing a recent study from the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry comparing the effects of broccoli in its whole food form to broccoli in a pill.

Broccoli in a pill? Is this possible? As someone who got sick on broccoli a few years ago and has had an aversion to it since, this would be a Godsend!

Not so fast…

Researchers found that taking broccoli in a pill resulted in much lower levels of phytochemicals excreted in the urine (one way to measure how much of a nutrient we get from foods and supplements). They believed this was likely due to a lack of an enzyme needed to absorb the nutrients. This enzyme cannot be made – it can only be found in real broccoli eaten in food form.

Without the enzyme present in the pill, researchers found that absorption was five times less from the pill than from the whole food broccoli!

The bottom line?

To reduce your cancer risk, fill your shopping cart with fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, rather than pills.

If you can buy from a local farmer, do so to get the freshest produce.

Always discuss vitamins, dietary supplements and herbals with your oncologist, nurse, pharmacist and/or dietitian to review for any known interactions or side effects with your other medications.