Actually Atkins, in his book, EXPRESSLY recommends specific
supplements. For instance, Low Carbing often produces severe muscle
cramps. He mentions the 2 or 3 nutrients that in short supply cause
this. I experienced them and taking the supplement fixed the problem.
I believe is is caused by the lack of bread in a typical low-carber
diet.  

Most people don't realize that since the 1930s virtually every
industrialized nation uses bread as a vitamin and nutritional
supplement (called enrichment or enriched breads in the U.S.) in the
population. When white flour became mass-produced and enabled the mass
product of white breads after the turn of the century, it caused
several diseases through the population, both here and all other
industrialized nations. It would take 30 years to understand what,
they first thought were infectious diseases, were actually
deficiencies in the diet. The over-processed white flour lacked most
of the nutrition of real flour--because the nutrious parts were
largely perishable and had to be removed to enable longer shelf life.
So to say nutrient supplements aren't valueable is ridiculous, since
virtually none of us can return to a life where we live close to the
land and survive solely upon what we and our neighbors grow and eat no
mass produced food. And there is no evidence that the land, in each
limited range of ecosystems provides the diversity to long and healthy
lives. The earth runs in a yearly cycle. Mankind has chosen a weekly
cycle to live life by. We can't conserve energy and sleep more in
winter, we have jobs.

If you look at nature, the animal kingdom largely survives on numbers.
Animals breed heavily to ensure the survivial of the entire species,
not the survival on the individual. If the natural method of life is
what you are seeking than that includes a high mortality rate and an
equally high procreative stance. So the human race needs to survive,
it doesn't matter if the individual dies.

ALso there is no evidence that "Humans survived with far less
degenerative diseases for ages."  It is a fact that people live longer
now, we has census records dating back 200 years in this country
telling us how long people survived. It is a fact that women and
infants survive childbirth more now than back in the "good ole days"
when everyone lived without medical knowledge. Medical records based
upon ignorance (that frogs jumped in our throats at night" or "demons
possessed us") doesn't qualify as proof of much more than the
ignorance of that time. So I'm really not convinced of what EXACTLY is
wrong with our modern diet. I think, as I mention above, there is
evidence that processed foods are poorer quality and lack a complexity
of nutrition that nature provides. But how many of us are going to
grow our own wheat, grind, mill, and bake our own breads?

Your statement sounds like you discourage vitamins as not worth it,
and that appears reckless.

Too much water can literally kill you, and will stress the body. There
is no medical basis whatsoever to the assertion that people need to
drink 8 glasses of water a day--an often repeated recommendation. It
appears to have been made up in gym-cultures and propigated as an
urban myth about what constitutes health. SO whether 2 glasses of
water or 14 glasses of water is right is completely unknown.  Telling
people to drink water is more empty than you see the push for
vitamins.

I agree that, like pharmeceuticals, vitamins and supplements should be
restircted and controlled in advertising and claims. On the other
side, the govenrment and doctors are dragging their feet on pushing
for understanding and advancement of nutrition. Pharmeceutical
companies will never go there because there is no patent worth owning.
It is one of, if not the most important area of public health and one
where not enough progress is being made cause it simply isn't as
marketable as telling everyone that they must reduce their cholesterol
number below X and the only way to do it is by taking our #1 profit
making pill for the rest of your life.

DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)
350/288/225  month-start: 292 monthly-goal: 8 since: 12/01/2004
Low Carb started Jan 12, 2004.

  Also the "25 egg per day man" would have been only getting less than 11%
of vitamin K, 5% of niacin, 0% vitamin C, 63% of the needed calcium, and 31%
of required magnesium. Yet, he survived for 15 years on his diet. ( Not sure
how he died. Car accident? Does anyone here know?) Eggs have everything that
is needed to make a whole animal. Not just enough to maintain it's size, but
actually build everything from scratch and grow.
  Raw bison meat, according to Fitday, contains 0 amounts of vitamin A, D,
C, E, B6, B12, thiamin and folate. Many natives, explorers and pioneers
lived off of pemmican for months at a time.
  Maybe most of the vitamins that are needed according to RDA, are needed
only on a high carb diet.