Experts are always stating the importance of getting plenty of vitamins through our diet, but a new study suggests that could actually be a limit to how many we really need. Since the discovery of vitamins in 1912, the mantra has always been more is better, funding a billion-pound industry that many of us have paid into in a bid to be as healthy as possible. Furthermore, we’ve long promoted the benefits of vitamin C, E and A as having numerous health-boosting properties, even claiming that the latter can help to protect against certain cancers. But in trials this year suggest the opposite may be true – high vitamin doses can actually increase the incidences of cancer, and vitamin E supplements have been found to statistically increase the risk of prostate cancer. The results of various studies show that high doses of vitamin supplements could actually be having a detrimental effect on prolonging life, rather than boosting it as we once thought.
The trials were carried out to see whether taking more vitamins, through supplements and through our diets, were actually good for our health. But looking at how vitamins really work could answer that question for us. For example, antioxidants are thought to protect against cancers, but in the body they’re broken down into molecules which interfere with the body’s natural defence against such diseases. Further studies need to take place to see how each of these vitamins work with regards to their supposed health benefits, as we may have been promoting the very things which could be making our defence lower. Billions of pounds have been spent on supplements and the advertising for vitamins as a positive addition to our diets and general wellbeing, but until we know more about the inner workings of vitamins, it seems as though we could be falsely praising these nutrients.
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