While we’re big on vitamin and mineral supplements these days, we don’t actually know a hell of a lot about them. In fact, there are plenty of myths floating around out there about vitamins, and how they benefit your wellness, but you may be putting your wellbeing at risk by taking them in large quantities. Unless your doctor tells you otherwise, it’s best to get the vitamins you need from your diet, rather than pills, but still you find yourself swaying towards supplement aisle for a quick fix. Let’s take a look at the common misconceptions about vitamins:
1. Getting more than your recommended dietary intake means you’ll be doing even more good for your wellness.
Just because small amounts of vitamins are good for you, it doesn’t follow that large amounts are even better. Less is more when it comes to vitamins, especially fat-soluble ones like vitamins A, D, E and K. These vitamins can be stored in your body, which means taking high doses over a long period of time can lead to harmful levels. Even the water-soluble ones can be damaging in high doses, as large amounts of vitamin B6, for example, has been linked with nerve damage.
2. Taking supplements is essential to prevent deficiencies and illness.
Your body can store vitamins, even if they’re only water-soluble ones, albeit for a shorter period of time. It will take months before a vitamin deficiency will affect your wellbeing, so it doesn’t matter if your healthy, balanced diet takes a dive here and there. As long as you usually eat a wide variety of fresh foods, an occasional lapse in good eating will not harm you. For some people, supplements do have a role to place. You may need certain supplements if you’re pregnant, on a long-term restrictive weight loss diet, or someone who suffers from malabsorption problems such as diarrhoea, celiac disease, cystic fibrosis or pancreatitis. If this is you, consult your doctor for more information – you should never start supplementing without your doctor’s advice.
3. Vitamin C can help to prevent colds.
Though the research into this subject has been exhaustive, there is still no strong evidence to suggest that vitamin C helps prevent the common cold. While studies have shown that taking more than 1,000mg of the vitamin every day can ease some of the symptoms and duration of a cold (making it about half a day shorter), even this does not prevent you catching a cold and can cause more damage than it lessens. Large doses of vitamin C can cause nausea, abdominal cramps, headaches, fatigue, kidney stones and diarrhoea, as well as messing with medical tests and your body’s ability to process other nutrients. You only need 45mg of vitamin C per day.
4. Vitamin E will stave off heart disease.
As vitamin E is widely recognised as a beneficial antioxidant, may people believe that it can help to prevent heart disease. Not only is there no evidence to support this theory, but studies have categorically proven that vitamin E doesn’t protect your heart. Moreover, taking supplements of the vitamin may even increase your risk of death from all causes!
5. Supplements can protect you against cancer.
It would be nice if a few pills could prevent cancer, but unfortunately it’s not that easy. If you take large quantities of vitamin A, not only will it not cure cancer but it will also be toxic to your body. A small amount of evidence indicates that vitamin E can protect you against certain cancers, but there is an equal chance that this vitamin will cause other types of cancer – pick your poison!