Multivitamins seem to have a lot of support. Celebrities slap their faces on them, direct marketing companies peddle them and your local pharmacy is all too eager to hawk them. Vitamin and mineral supplements haven’t just appeared out of nowhere, they’ve been dotted around the wellness market for years and years, so why all the sudden fuss?
These days, so many of us lead fast-paced lives in busy towns, that we’re looking for a quick fix for our wellbeing rather than trying to find the time to cook nutritious meals. Also, relatively recently, researchers have discovered that you need certain nutrients that your body doesn’t produce, and you cannot easily source from the average diet, and here enters clever advertisers who project multivitamins as some kind of insurance against any possible health problem. However, it turns out that the benefits of your tablets are just as manufactured as the vitamins themselves.
Let’s breakdown some of that vitamin-pill hype. Vitamins A, C and E are said to fight the damaging action of free radicals, which in turn, have been linked to cardiovascular diseases and other neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, but people rush out to stock up on these supplements before they get all the facts. According to a recent study from the University of California, not only is there no good evidence that vitamins reduced the risk of cancer in healthy people, but large doses of vitamins like beta carotene, a form of vitamin A, and vitamins C and E can end up promoting cancer.
So does that mean you have to pick your poison between cancer and heart disease? Of course not, but you may have to rethink how you get the levels of vitamins you need. According to a meta-analysis of trials published in 2008, vitamin C from food such as oranges and red peppers can offer protection against heart disease, and even reduce the risk of breast cancer in women with a family history of the disease, but taking vitamin C in supplement form does nothing for your wellness.
Perhaps it’s best to follow the advice of a medical health professional, rather than celebrity endorsers. Dr Kiran Sharma, New Delhi-based internal medicine specialist, urges, ‘Give your body what it deserves instead of the pills. The benefits of routine supplementation are unproven but not that of real food. High doses of vitamins probably cause more harm than good. If you are concerned about your nutrition then, improve your diet.’
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