BALTIMORE -- Once a month Kristen Curtin gets vitamins pumped into her bloodstream through an IV.
The Mount Airy, Md., mother of three started getting the intravenous vitamins a few years ago as a way to increase her energy. Taking care of small children often leaves her tired and drained.
Her go-to cocktail of vitamins is one from Nava Health Vitality & Wellness Center in Bethesda, Md., that contains magnesium, vitamin C and other nutrients. When she feels a cold coming on, she gets a mix with extra vitamin C to strengthen her immune system. Curtin says she has felt more vibrant since starting the infusions.
"My overall health has gotten better," Curtin says. "I am not as tired and I don't get sick as often."
Curtin and many others swear by the infusions, which are touted as getting vitamins into the body more quickly than a pill can. Madonna, Rihanna, Gwyneth Paltrow and other celebrities have hailed the benefits of the infusions, which take 30 minutes to an hour to administer and have a starting cost of $100. Clinics and medical spas offering the infusions have popped up throughout the country.
No one tracks the number of people who get the vitamin IVs, but some medical spas and health centers say they are popular.
The infusions are said to slow the aging process, help athletes recover quickly from strenuous workouts and help people get over a hangover more quickly. "Take too many shots? Call me in the morning," says the website of one company that says its infusions are perfect for the day after a wedding or bachelor or bachelorette party.
Some doctors have used the infusions to treat chronic conditions such as asthma attacks, migraines, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, acute muscle spasm, sinusitis and allergies.
But the health benefits of the procedure are up for debate. Some studies have shown the infusions have no more than a placebo effect and are medically unnecessary. Too many of some vitamins can be harmful to the body, doctors say. The infusions are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat any disease.
Dr. Marc I. Leavey, a Timonium, Md., primary care physician, remembers a patient telling him a couple of years ago that he was headed to New York for a vitamin infusion. Leavey talked the patient out of going.
People who get vitamin infusions probably do feel better afterward, Leavey says. But that may be because the infusions hydrate them and they are sitting in a calm environment while getting the procedure. Some medspas even pamper patients, seating them in reclining chairs and playing soft music.
"Although there are many clinics that do it, the vitamin infusions show no demonstrable medical benefit," Leavey says.
The late Dr. John Meyers, a Johns Hopkins internist, pioneered intravenous vitamin treatments with the creation of the Meyers cocktail. The ingredients included vitamin C, magnesium, calcium and B vitamins. The mix is still used by doctors today, but many variations also exist.
Meyers and others who treat patients with vitamin IVs have said the increased concentration of nutrients in the blood allows quicker access to the body's cells. They claim patients start to get healthier as the blood gets the high doses of nutrients more times. The process also bypasses the digestive system, which some doctors say can't fully absorb the nutrients when taken in pill form.
"When you have higher nutrient levels in the blood, that creates more of a tendency for the nutrients to be able to get inside the cell where they are better able to be utilized," says Dr. William Rollow, director of clinical services at the University of Maryland Center for Integrative Medicine and an assistant professor in the department of family medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Style on 03/20/2018